Reality Bites
by Ludub
Summary: Reid turns up unconscious and beaten a few days after the team's night out. When he starts acting strangely, it's up to Morgan and Garcia to figure out the truth and help him to come to terms with it. Rated T for language, violence, and sexual content (non-graphic).
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

* * *

 **Sunday Morning…**

"Where is he?!" asked Morgan, rushing from the doors of the elevator towards the nurses' station. Garcia was standing there, her face unmistakably blotched and tear streaked from all the crying. "Is he okay?! Have you seen him?!"

"Oh God, Derek!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms as soon as he got close enough. "It's just awful!" she sobbed, as she buried her face in his chest, "I think my sweet little Baby Cakes… I think he's been… Oh God! I can't even say it!"

"Can't say what?" he asked her in a tender voice. He pulled her away from him for a moment to look her in the eye and what he saw there told him everything he needed to know. He was pretty sure that he knew what she was going to say, but he didn't want her to say it. It was like someone had just kicked him in the stomach.

"How could someone do something like that to sweet little gentle Reid?!" she asked, her voice almost a whimper.

"Hey…" he said, seeking to reassure her, "We don't know for sure yet, do we? I mean… the doctors haven't told you anything yet, have they?"

"No… but I think someone… I think…" she continued to stammer, " _Derek_ , I saw the police report… they want to run a rape kit…"

"Fuck!" he groaned, hugging his arms around her again and resting his chin on top of her head. He was so angry that he could hardly breathe and all he really wanted to do was put his fist through the wall. But as he held Garcia in his arms, he knew that he needed to stay strong for her, and getting thrown out for tearing the place apart wasn't going to help Reid any.

"Have you let Hotch know?" he asked eventually, "And the rest of the team?"

"They're on their way" she said nodding, a hint of nervousness creeping into her voice, "Hotch didn't ask how I found out… I might have some explaining to do…"

She'd called Morgan an hour ago and made a sort of stammered confession. One of her ' _not so legal'_ alert systems had gone off, and she was already on her way to the hospital. It was one that she didn't want Hotch or the FBI to know about because she was breaking so many privacy laws it wasn't even funny. She'd set up an alert system to let her know if any member of the team was ever admitted to hospital. The moment one of their names popped up in the records of an Emergency Room, in any hospital nationwide, her screen would light up like a Christmas tree. Of course, she'd hoped that it would never have to be used…

Unfortunately, a certain 'Dr Spencer Reid' had been brought in unconscious and badly beaten, after being found in an alleyway downtown. His badge had been tossed on the ground beside him but all other possessions were gone. Due to the nature of his injuries and the fact that he'd been found with no clothes on, the doctors had tagged him as a possible 'sexual assault' case. Garcia hadn't stopped crying since she'd seen the alert.

"What if Hotch fires me?" she asked, sniffling into Morgan's shirt.

"He won't" he said, "Don't worry about that right now… It's Reid we should be worried about."

"It's not fair!" she said, her voice muffled by his chest, "Why does it always have to be Spencer?! My poor little Junior G-Man?! He doesn't deserve this!"

"I know… I know, Baby Girl…" he said, rocking her gently from side to side, "He'll be okay… I'm sure he's gonna be okay."

He hoped for the love of God that that was true, but if Reid really had been assaulted, then he knew more than anyone how hard it would be for him to deal with something like that. Especially someone like Reid, a man as private as him, and someone so unused to talking about things of a sexual nature. He remembered him stuttering the words _'sexual relations'_ on a number of occasions, and even referring to sex as _'copulation'_. I mean, who does that?! The more he thought about it, the poor kid talked like someone who'd never even had sex. Was Reid a virgin?! The thought made his stomach clench in anger. How unfair would it be for the kid's first sexual experience to be one of rape?! …Just like his own?!

' _Boy just can't catch a break!_ ' he thought to himself bitterly, _'First Hankel, now this?!'_

He gave a little sigh of relief as he caught sight of the doctor approaching. The man looked tired and a little dishevelled, but he could see the concern etched across the man's face. He knew right then that it had to be serious. This wasn't just Garcia overreacting. Something terrible had happened!

"Spencer Reid?" called the doctor, as he stepped towards them, "I'm told that you're his work colleagues. I'm to ask for an Agent Hotchner… He's been named as Spencer's medical contact."

"He's not here yet!" whined Garcia, a desperate tone to her voice, "He was out of town on a consult… He'll be here tomorrow morning."

"I see" said the doctor, with a frown, "Well… I'm Dr James… and I've been treating Spencer since he came in… but I was hoping to speak to his medical proxy… I hope you understand that I can't discuss confidential patient matters with just anyone…"

"But we're his friends" said Garcia.

"I understand that" he replied kindly, "But hospital policy is very clear on this point."

Morgan nodded, his eyebrows knit together. "Can you at least tell us if he's okay?" he asked, "I mean, how bad is it?"

"He's stable" nodded the doctor, "And he's awake… Talking… I'm sorry to say that he has been the victim of a very serious assault, but his injuries aren't life-threatening... That's as much as I can tell you."

"Can we see him?" asked Morgan.

"I'm afraid not" said Dr James, with a curt little shake of the head, "He's asked specifically that you all stay outside… He's been very clear about that… No visitors."

"What?!" asked Morgan, looking more than a little shocked, "Why?!"

"He's asked for full confidentiality…" shrugged the doctor, "I'm sorry, but I have to respect his wishes."

"He said he doesn't want us in there?" repeated Morgan, "He actually said that?! _Us_?! His team?!"

"Yes, I'm sorry" said the Doctor.

"That's what he said to me" sobbed Garcia, "When I first got here, I saw him being wheeled back from X-ray… But... he... he ordered me out of the room, Derek! He was so angry! And scared! And there was so much blood everywhere… and I …I've never seen him look like this! …He wouldn't even tell me what happened!"

"You saw him?!" he asked, a look of surprise on his face. He'd just assumed that she'd been waiting out here the whole time.

"A nurse took me back there" she said, "But he didn't want to see me… I don't know why he wouldn't let me help!"

"He's just a little distressed" offered the doctor, "Everyone reacts differently to trauma… We see it all the time..."

"Do _you_ know what happened?!" asked Morgan, looking to the doctor in a pleading way, "Has he told you who did this?!"

"You know I can't tell you that" said the doctor, an apologetic grimace on his face, "I wish I could be of more help."

Garcia nodded and went to sit down on one of the chairs in the hallway. "I just don't understand this" she said, with an exasperated huff, "We're his 'family'… Why wouldn't he want us in there?!"

"Well, I'm gonna see him whether he likes it or not" said Morgan, as he started to push past the doctor. He had no idea where he was going exactly but he wasn't going to stand around here like a spare part. If he had to check every room, he was going to find him and knock some sense into him.

"Look, I can ask him" said the Doctor, catching him by the arm to stop him, "It's Derek, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Derek Morgan" he huffed.

"Okay" said Dr James "I'll tell him that you're here…"

"Tell him I'm gonna kick his skinny butt if he doesn't let me in there to see him" growled Morgan.

The doctor gave a tired little smile. He recognised a familial relationship when he saw one. Spencer Reid might not have 'family' in the traditional sense of the word, but the dark-skinned man in front of him was behaving every bit like a frightened and frustrated family member would. The same was true of the blonde-haired woman. He made a decision to treat them as _de facto_ family from here on out.

"I'll tell him" he agreed, "Although I might not use those exact words…"

"Yeah well…" huffed Morgan, as he went to sit down beside Garcia, "Kid needs someone to make him see reason…"

"I'll go and see if he's changed his mind" nodded the Doctor, "He might have second thoughts if he knows you're out here." He gave Morgan a little pat on the arm. "I'll make sure he knows that you're worried."

"Thanks, Doc" said Morgan, watching helplessly as the Doctor headed through a swinging door, presumably towards Reid's room.

Morgan put his hands on top of his shaved head and turned to look at Garcia. She gave him a _'what the hell is going on?!'_ kind of look.

Why was Reid refusing to see them?!

* * *

 **Three nights ago…**

"How did you get served so quickly?!" yelled Reid, with a disapproving glance at Morgan as he stood behind him with a beer in his hand, "You know, you _could_ give me a hand here?!"

The bar they were in was slammed tonight and no matter how much he tried to get the bartender's attention, it was like he was invisible. What was more frustrating was that not fifteen minutes ago, Morgan had managed to get himself and Hotch a beer with little difficulty. He'd just thrown one of his trademark smiles at the barmaid and she'd gone weak at the knees. The same wasn't working for Reid. He suspected that smiling like a Cheshire cat probably just made him look like a serial killer. No wonder the barmaids were giving him a wide berth! He hadn't needed a drink when he'd started queuing, but he definitely needed one now! Besides, he'd been despatched to the bar to get a round of drinks for the girls. He was failing miserably - quelle surprise! – but he was going to get served if it killed him! He just hated that smug look on Morgan's face that said _'How can you not even order a drink?!'_

Reid let out a little grunt of frustration when the barmaid bypassed him again and served a man two spots to his left. The 100 dollar bill in his hand had once again gone unnoticed.

"I _could_ help" shouted Morgan, before taking a slug from his bottle of beer and glancing towards the door, "But how would you ever learn to do this stuff?!"

"Oh, for…?!" huffed Reid, his face flushing red with indignation as the barmaid ignored him again, "Am I invisible or something?!"

"Oh…kay, come on Pretty Boy" laughed Morgan, as he grabbed Reid's arm and pulled him out of the way. He plucked the $100 bill from between Reid's fingers and fixed him with a smug grin. "I'll get these" he said, "But you're carrying them back to the table."

Reid watched incredulously as Morgan leaned across the bar, snagging the attention of the scantily clad young waitress within about 5 seconds flat, and placed their order. A single malt whiskey costing around $25 for Rossi, 2 glasses of white wine for JJ and Prentiss, a Cosmopolitan for Garcia, a beer each for himself and Hotch, and a Vodka and Coke for Reid. He turned and handed the tray to Reid and threw him a little wink.

"And that's how it's done" said Morgan, as he razzled Reid's hair in a condescending way.

"It is if you look like you" huffed Reid.

"Hey, now…" laughed Morgan, as they moved across the nightclub floor toward the rest of the team, "Just cos I use what God gave me…"

"Exactly!" said Reid, as he shrugged him off in an irritated way, "This has nothing to do with ability or skill… You happen to be particularly blessed in the genetics department… and the world reacts to you in a certain way simply because our brains are hard-wired to see large stature and facial symmetry as attractive qualities in a mate… Those barmaids just think you'd sire healthy children…"

"Yeah… right… 'sire'…" repeated Morgan, in a decidedly distracted voice. He'd stopped walking and was staring at the stairs that served as an entry to the club.

Reid gave a little sigh when he followed Morgan's gaze. Savannah had just arrived by the looks of things… Morgan's new girlfriend.

"Will I just take these back to the table?" asked Reid, stepping back towards him for a moment

"Yeah… you do that…" said Morgan, his attention elsewhere. He'd just seen Savannah walk through the door in that tight red dress of hers and he was too busy smiling at her. He loved the way that it hugged her in all the right places. Even better, was the fact that he knew what that dress meant!

"Oh" said Reid, rolling his eyes, and grumbling, "Does this mean you're not giving me a ride home later?"

Morgan didn't answer. He just watched as Savannah made her way through the crowd, a seductive smile on her lips, and eyes only for him.

"Hey, Babe" he purred, hugging his arms around her waist as soon as she was within reach, and devouring her with his eyes. "How was your day?" he asked, as his lips curled up at the corners and he leaned in for a kiss, "Ready for a drink?"

"Mmmm-hmmm" she moaned, as she pressed her body up against his, and returned his kiss enthusiastically.

"Never mind" sighed Reid. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head in disgust as they kissed a little too passionately for a public bar, "I'll leave you two… to… uh… whatever you're doing…"

"Hey Spence!" mumbled Savannah, laughing a little, mid-kiss, with her arms flung around Morgan's neck. She hadn't even looked at him.

"Yeah, hey Savannah" he muttered, waving at her over his shoulder as he headed towards the rest of the team. He arrived back at the table and was met with a round of applause and a particularly loud 'whoop whoop' from Garcia.

"How long can it take to get a couple of drinks?" grumbled Rossi, as Reid set the tray on the table.

"You try getting served up there!" he huffed.

"Awww… don't be mean to my sweet little chickadee" teased Garcia, as she reached over and pinched his cheek (much to his annoyance).

Reid rolled his eyes and slunk into the bench seat on one side of the table. He reached for his drink and began sullenly drinking it.

As he listened to Garcia and the others bantering back and forth, he began to realise that his stomach felt like it was tied in knots. He was breathing very heavily too.

He didn't really understand what he was feeling but after a moment or two it dawned on him... He was angry!

He was angry and resentful. People were always teasing him for one thing or another. If it wasn't Morgan teasing him for being socially awkward, then it was Garcia playing 'mother hen', or Rossi behaving like he was some little boy to be schooled in the 'ways of the world'. He was sick of it! When would they realise that he was 25 years old?!

He was definitely annoyed about that… but as he sat here now, he realised that that wasn't really it. That wasn't why he was angry. If he was honest with himself, it was more that he envied Morgan and Savannah their happiness… and all of the other happy couples that he could see around him.

He hated seeing people kiss more than anything.

If someone had asked him, he couldn't really have explained why it annoyed him so much. It just did! He hid it most of the time but sometimes he found it difficult, and tonight was one of those nights! It wasn't that he wanted a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend for that matter. Far from it! He didn't want _anyone_! What he wanted was to have that _feeling_. That's what he was jealous of! He wanted to feel that way about someone… _anyone_! To experience what that was like! To want to rip someone's clothes off! To want to be with them so much that nothing else mattered! To _want_ to be naked with them! He'd never had that. Sad as that was, he'd never felt that way about anyone… not ever!

He'd tried to fake it over the years, to put on a show for everyone else's benefit, to be 'normal'… but he just wasn't. He'd even tried to fake it for himself in the hope that it might ignite something inside him and maybe he'd somehow become 'normal' like everyone else, but he'd just been going through the motions. It wasn't like he'd never had sex, he'd just never enjoyed it. He hadn't been able to make himself feel the things that he was 'supposed' to feel. He just wasn't made that way.

All he'd ever felt was shame and revulsion! He didn't like the nakedness. Sometimes he'd try to shut that part of himself off completely and pretend that it didn't exist. He would have been happier if it didn't, like a Ken doll with nothing between its legs. Life might have been easier…

But, in truth, he was tired of being alone… He didn't want to be on his own anymore… He wanted someone to curl up on the couch with, and someone to do things with. Someone to belong to… He wanted companionship… and all the things that being in a relationship was supposed to bring…

Apart from the sex.

Was that so much to ask?!

Why did everything have to come down to that?! To some animalistic urge to 'mount' each other?! To get naked and hump each other silly?! To copulate?!

Wasn't there more to love and life than that?! Something on a higher level? Something more 'cerebral'? Or was it really just about 'bumping nasties'? Was that all that the 'normal' world really cared about?!

It certainly seemed that way.

He sighed to himself, as he stirred idly at his Vodka and Coke. He couldn't help reflecting on how his 'career' had been the perfect cover so far, allowing him to deflect from difficult questions. _'I can't have a girlfriend when life is so complicated!', 'How can I have a relationship when we might have to leave on a case at a moment's notice?!', 'I don't have time! I need to concentrate on my career!_ ' …It couldn't always be his excuse, could it?!

He'd tried explaining things to Morgan once, but all he'd done was ridicule him, and tell him that he ' _mustn't be doing it right'_. And the one time he'd tried to have an honest heart to heart with JJ, she'd jumped to the conclusion that he must be gay. The truth was much more difficult to explain. And he just wasn't ready to lay his cards on the table and 'out himself', so to speak. He wasn't brave enough for that. Not yet.

He smiled a little sadly to himself and shook his head. To anyone looking at him now, he would have appeared the picture of calm. He was anything but! He was like a swan, all serene and dignified above the surface, but paddling furiously underneath!

Why couldn't he just be 'normal', he wondered to himself?! Why did he have to be such a weirdo?! Such a freak?!

Those questions whirled around in his head as he smiled weakly at his teammates. He was always insulting himself and calling himself names in his head.

He smiled at the young waitress when she came to take the empty glasses from the table. He glanced at her breasts, so visibly pert in that tight work top of hers, and wondered at how other men might find them tantalising. They'd probably be imagining her naked, or fantasising about what they'd like to do to her. They'd be thinking about the parts of their body that they'd like to insert into hers. Two sweaty bodies, slipping and sliding against each other, with all the smells and the sound effects that that entailed…

He shuddered at the thought of it.

All he saw was a pretty young girl with a nice set of boobs.

' _Nice'_. Not a word that a red-blooded heterosexual would use to describe them. But he wasn't homosexual either. Neither body did it for him.

He was nothing… and that was even worse!

' _I hate myself'_ he thought to himself, as she walked away, _'Why can't I just be 'normal'?!'_

He glared hard at the almost empty glass in his hand and decided that he wanted something a bit stronger to try to chase his misery away, or at least help to silence that voice of self-loathing in his head. Getting wasted usually worked for a little while.

"I'm going to the bar" he said, slipping out from the table again and motioning to Hotch and Rossi's glasses to see if they wanted another drink. They both shook their heads. He glanced over to where the three girls were dancing and decided not to venture near them for fear of being pulled onto the dancefloor against his will.

He made his way over to the decidedly less busy bar, glancing only momentarily at Morgan and Savannah who were grinding up against each other a little obscenely. Surely, what they were doing was far too graphic to really be classed as 'dancing'?

He pushed in, setting his empty glass on the counter, and looked around to see if he could make eye contact with one of the young and pretty things behind the bar. Surely one of them would take pity on him and get him a shot of tequila before the night was out?!

"Dr Reid?!" said a young man, leaning around him to stick his excited looking face into his line of sight, "I knew it was you!"

"Do I know you?" asked Reid, looking at him a little uncertainly.

"The name's Kris Novotny" said the man, extending his hand in a friendly way. Reid gave a little wave instead of taking his hand.

"Uh hi..." he replied, "But uh... how do you know me? ...I mean… have we met before?"

He was pretty sure that he would have remembered. No-one, whether they were gay or straight, could have denied that the man was very good looking. He looked about the same age as Reid but he was definitely dressed in a way that was more 'club appropriate'. He had short black hair, carefully quaffed, but messy in a 'bed head' sort of way. It went well with his designer stubble and his well-fitted black shirt and jeans. He looked effortlessly 'cool'. Suddenly Reid felt very self-conscious in his 'geeky' clothing, complete with childish Converse. He began fidgeting almost immediately.

"I attended some of your lectures" said Kris, gazing at him with piercing blue eyes, "I've been following all of your work for years… Pretty much every paper you've ever written! …Maybe this is a weird thing to say, but… I'm a huge fan!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Apologies for the long wait on this chapter. I've just moved to the other side of the planet, from Ireland to Australia, so to say that I've been busy with personal stuff would be a bit of an understatement! I'll try to update a little more regularly when I get settled. As always, thank you to my lovely reviewers (Jesuslover123, Pembie, LastOceanKit, Cherubim22, ticklintheivries99, Dextolan, JessicaRae95, Sophie, and spxxxxx). This is the most response I've ever had to a fanfic, so thank you all! Hope you like the next chapter! xx**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2**

 **Three days ago (continued)…**

"Who's that guy that Reid's with?" asked Morgan, as he ambled over to the table and stood beside Prentiss and Garcia. Savannah had gone to the bathroom so he'd finally come up for air long enough to realise he'd been neglecting the team. He thought he'd better show his face before making a sneaky exit when Savannah returned. Hotch and Rossi had already said their goodbyes.

"What?! Where?!" gasped Garcia, whirling round to look a little too excitedly and staggering a little on her kitten heel. Morgan had to reach out and steady her and she gave him a coy smile before turning her attention back to the youngest member of the team.

"That guy" said Morgan, pointing with his beer bottle towards the booth where Reid was now sitting. Their boy genius seemed to be having a very involved conversation with a dark-haired man and by the way the kid's hands were flying about as he spoke, Morgan could only guess that he'd found a captive audience.

"Ooooh!" laughed Garcia, "Looks like my fluffy little bunny rabbit has found himself an audience!" She'd been too busy dancing to notice that Reid had disappeared but she was happy that he'd found someone to talk to. "And he's cute!" she said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at the two girls, "If I wasn't already taken, I'd be over there, like… like… something on something…"

"Down girl!" laughed Morgan.

"Derek, I think maybe I drank too much" sighed Garcia, leaning in against him and exaggerating her drunkenness. He wrapped his arm around her for a one-armed hug.

"No maybes about it" he replied, with an amused roll of the eyes. He glanced at Prentiss, because she'd drawn the short straw tonight and was everyone's designated driver. She threw him a _'don't worry, I got it'_ look and he gave a little nod.

"Looks like Reid's got himself a fan" said Prentiss, as she gazed toward the booth. The dark-haired stranger was laughing loudly at something that Reid had said, and the kid had ducked his head in a shy kind of way, a pleased smile curling at his lips. She had to resist the urge to tilt her head and say _'awww!'_ It was nice to see him coming out of his shell.

"Do we know him?" asked Morgan, glancing at his only sober colleague, and then at JJ, before narrowing his eyes at the man again. It wasn't like Reid was the most sociable guy, so seeing him make friends in a club was decidedly out of character. Alarm bells were ringing quietly in the back of Morgan's mind.

"Nope!" laughed JJ, "Look at you getting all protective and possessive…" She'd obviously had quite a bit to drink and her 's' sounds were noticeably slurred.

"Hey!" laughed Savannah, when she returned to find Morgan staring across the room at Reid, "I thought you were ordering me another cocktail?!" She slipped her arms around his waist from behind and peeked around his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

"Oh yeah, sorry" he muttered distractedly, as he tried to figure out what was being said at the table over there. _'Should I go over?'_ he thought to himself, _'Should I maybe go over and make it clear the kid's got people here looking out for him?'_ He was vaguely aware of Savannah being back and the fact that she was trying to get his attention, but he wasn't all that good at multitasking.

"What are you doing?" she asked, whispering in his ear in a conspiratorial sort of tone, "Spying on Reid?!"

"Yeah, he's over there, talking to some guy" he answered, "Just keeping an eye…"

"Well…" she said, raising her eyebrows in interest, "It looks like it's going _very_ well!"

She'd just seen Kris throw his head back with laughter again, and Reid had flushed up a little red, and giggled in a sheepish way. The more she watched, the more she thought it looked like they were flirting?! She put her hand on Morgan's bicep to get his attention and tilted her head at him in a mischievous sort of way when he turned to look at her.

"You don't think?" she asked, smirking a little, "You don't think it's _more_ than two guys shooting the breeze… do you?!"

"Huh?" asked Morgan, failing to follow her train of thought.

"Look at them, Derek!" she said, motioning with her head towards them again, "Look at the way that guy is looking at him…" Kris had his head resting on his hand, and he was gazing at Reid all dreamy eyed. "Look at the way he keeps touching him on the arm when he says something funny" she said demonstrating on Morgan's arm. " _Oh God! You're so funny!"_ she exclaimed, in an exaggerated way, before throwing her head back and laughing, " _I just luuurrrrrve you!"_

"What?!" exclaimed Morgan, suddenly joining the dots, "But the kid's not… I mean… He's not…?"

Prentiss, having overheard the conversation, raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged. "Isn't he?" she asked, "Are you sure about that?"

"I don't think…" he began to say, looking startled, "I mean… he's not..."

He couldn't say 100% for certain that he wasn't. He knew that Reid had never really had a girlfriend that he was serious about, and he'd never even heard him talk about women. There'd been that actress in the pool that time, but it had clearly been the girl that had taken the lead. She'd kissed him, not the other way around… So, maybe he _was_ gay?! How had he never figured that out before?!

"I mean…" he said again, "You really think…?"

"You're telling me you're not getting some serious 'vibes' off those two?!" laughed Savannah, "Cos that guy looks like he'd do anything to get in Spencer's pants right now!"

"Ewwww! Babe?!" scolded Morgan. He didn't want to think about his 'little brother' in that way! Not with a man!

"What?!" she laughed, motioning with her head for him to look again, "I'm just saying… I know what _I_ want when I look at a man _that_ way!"

"Me too!" laughed Prentiss, "He's giving him the _'take me to bed'_ eyes!"

"Oh, my God!" squealed Garcia, as she began clapping her hands in excitement, "He _soooo_ is!"

"Look!" said Savannah, "He's just touched him again!" This time the man's hand had lingered on Reid's arm just a little too long.

"Yeah…" said Morgan, furrowing his brow as he watched the other man. He recognised a lot of Savannah's ' _moves'_ , she was right about that. It was pretty clear that this Kris guy was gay and that he was sending out a hell of a lot of signals. Anyone else would have had to be an idiot not to notice, but this was Reid! The kid could be so blind to social cues sometimes.

"Aww, he's so shy!" giggled JJ, as she propped her head on her hand to watch him, "Look at him, blushing like a little schoolgirl!"

Morgan felt himself getting a little defensive. As much as he liked to tease Reid, this felt a bit too much like they were making fun of him. He looked from JJ back to the table across the room and frowned as Reid pulled away from the stranger's touch, nervously tucking his hair behind his ear and averting his eyes.

"Just cos the other guy is hot for him" said Morgan, narrowing his eyes at the handsome stranger again, "It doesn't mean Reid's gay."

"True" said Savannah, throwing the girls a knowing glance, "but..."

"He does seem to be enjoying his company…" shrugged Prentiss.

"That still doesn't mean he's gay" argued Morgan.

"Shhh!" exclaimed Garcia, seeing Reid get up from the table and start to make his way back towards them on his way to the bar, "Act natural!"

"Hey Kid!" said Morgan, trying to sound as casual as possible when he joined them at the table, "Looks like you're having a good time over there? Do you know that guy?"

"Yeah, he's um… he's a… a student who used to sit in on some of my lectures!" smiled Reid, "He's very astute."

"And he… he just approached you at the bar?" asked Morgan.

Reid nodded with a smile. "His name's Kris Novotny and he um… he wants me to consult on a study he's doing about the use of psychotropic drugs… and um…"

"And that's what you've been talking about?" asked Prentiss, her brow furrowed at the thought of talking 'shop' over such loud music. It hardly seemed the place for that kind of conversation. It also hadn't _looked_ like that kind of conversation.

"No… we were um…" he said, looking a little embarrassed, "We… we actually have a lot in common… Books, Movies, TV shows, graphic novels… He even likes Dr Who…"

"He does?!" squealed Garcia, with an excited glance in JJ's direction, "So he's a geek in stud clothing, huh?!"

Reid gave a bemused smile. "I _guess_ so?"

"Yeah, well it looks like you're getting on like a house on fire?!" said Prentiss, throwing Morgan an _'I told you so!_ ' sort of glance, "So… you're gonna help him with his study?"

"Yes, I think so…" nodded Reid, "It sounds interesting, and he said the paper I wrote last year was what inspired him… He wants my input…"

"I bet he does!" snorted JJ, and Garcia began to giggle.

Morgan shook his head at them disapprovingly. He didn't like them making fun of Reid under the circumstances.

"Anyway…" said Reid, failing to pick up on JJ's mocking tone, "I should really get back to him… I was supposed to be getting drinks, so…" He began to move towards the bar, and Morgan went to follow him.

"Hey?!" said Savannah, pulling Morgan back towards her, "He's a big boy, he can look after himself…"

"Yeah… I know" said Morgan, glancing across at the table where Kris was sitting, "I just..."

"Oh, come on!" laughed JJ, "You wouldn't be behaving this way if he was hooking up with a girl…"

"Yeah, Derek" teased Garcia, "Never would have had my hunk of chocolate love down as a homophobe?!"

"I'm not homophobic!" protested Morgan, even though on some level he began to wonder if he was.

The thought of poor little innocent Reid having sex with a man kind of scared him. To his mind, Reid was just a kid, lacking in experience and guile, and the thought of someone taking advantage of him brought all of his protective instincts to the fore. If he was honest with himself, JJ was right, he wouldn't have been worried if Reid had been hooking up with a girl. Being with a woman would have put Reid in the driving seat, and he could have decided how far to go and when to stop, but he couldn't imagine the kid ever taking the lead in a male/male relationship, so that automatically put him in a vulnerable position… _literally_. As he joined up the dots in his head, he wondered if his whole view was skewed? He _wouldn't_ have reacted this way if Reid was one of the girls, and arguably they would have been in just as vulnerable a position, so why did he see this so differently? Had Carl Buford scarred him that badly?! Had he instilled in him a deep-seated fear of homosexual sex?! Even though the rational part of him knew that consensual sex between adults was a world apart from what he had experienced? Was _that_ what this was about?!

… _Maybe?!_

"Yeah, right!" laughed JJ, "I've seen the way you look when you see two men kissing…"

"I don't look like anything!" he insisted, an indignant tone to his voice, "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"You're always wrinkling your nose" answered JJ, "I know you don't like it…"

"That's not true!" he protested, "I have nothing against gay men…"

"Glad to hear it" said Savannah, giving his arm a tug to lead him over to their table. She pushed him down onto one of the seats, and sat on his lap. When he turned to look at Reid again, he frowned as he watched the kid practically skip across the room and take his place again beside Kris. As the two young men resumed their conversation, he was a little shocked to see how much the pair looked like a couple. He'd really never thought of Reid ever having a relationship, so seeing him like this was throwing him a bit.

"Leave him alone!" scolded Savannah, as she forcibly turned his face towards hers, "He won't want you staring at him all night!"

"Yeah" laughed Garcia as she and Prentiss squashed in beside JJ on the opposite side to Morgan and Savannah, "You're gonna kill the mood if he catches you watching…"

Morgan let out an exasperated huff. "Did you ever think that you might just be seeing what you want to see?" he asked, looking back and forth between his friends.

"Oh, come on?!" teased JJ, as she nodded towards them again, "You can't say you don't see it?!"

Just then, Reid laughed out loud at something that Kris had said, and rested his chin on his hand. He looked a little drunk and more relaxed than any of them had seen him.

"Okay! Okay!" groaned Morgan, as he turned back towards the table, "Maybe… and I mean 'maybe' _… Maybe_ you're right!"

He didn't want to watch anymore. Now that the girls had opened his eyes to this startling possibility, watching the two men together felt like intruding on something quite intimate. It felt wrong, like a kind of voyeurism. He thought they deserved some privacy.

"I'm always right" laughed Garcia, as she drained the last of her Cosmo and flashed him a little grin, "Always!"

Morgan picked at the label of his bottle and quietly mulled things over. He'd never really given much thought to Reid's sexuality. They'd never really talked about it. With all the years of being on the job, it had always been difficult to form close relationships outside of the team, and when they had, they often didn't last long. Having to drop everything for a case was something that was hard to explain, and something not a lot of partners would put up with. And he'd kind of always assumed that Reid just wasn't that interested in having a relationship. That he was content to be on his own. But maybe he'd been wrong? Maybe Reid _was_ gay? It was certainly a possibility. He was a little sad if he'd felt that he couldn't tell the team. That he couldn't tell him, of all people?! Surely, he knew how much they all loved him, and that there was nothing he could ever do to change that? Being gay wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to how any of them felt about him. None at all! All that mattered to any of them was that he was happy. Surely, he knew that?!

"C'mon?" he said, getting up and taking Savannah's hand to make her follow him, "Let's go… I don't want to cramp his style…"

* * *

 **Sunday Morning…**

"I want to go home!" huffed Reid, sitting huddled in the bed in his hospital gown, "You can't keep me here!" He had his arms hugged around his knees, making himself into the smallest ball possible. "No tests! No drugs! I don't know how many times I have to say it!"

"No-one's keeping you here" reasoned Dr James, "but I have a duty of care… and you were unconscious when the paramedics found you… When we examined you, we found some tearing… You were bleeding so we had to give you stitches…"

"You had no right!" growled Reid, as he curled impossibly tighter. He tugged at his hospital gown in a desperate attempt to cover more of his body. His eyes flitted around like he was looking for an escape route.

"Dr Reid!" said the red-faced doctor, in a voice that said he was losing patience, "You were _naked_ … You were unconscious… And you have injuries that are consistent with…"

"I don't care!" he practically screamed back at him, "You had no right to examine me! No right!"

"Dr Reid! You are an FBI agent" replied the doctor, refusing to react to Reid's increasing hysteria, "You know that we have protocol to follow… and we can't ignore obvious injuries… As I said before, when you presented here this morning you were losing blood…"

"I was fine!" snapped Reid, "It wasn't anything serious!"

"On the contrary, Dr Reid… I'd say that bleeding of that kind can be very serious. It can lead to infection… Not to mention the fact that you could have contracted an STI… or simply bled out…"

Reid just continued shaking his head but now he had his eyes clamped shut.

"I would like to run some basic tests…" said the doctor, in a softer voice, "Just some blood tests… and then you can go home?"

"No! I'm okay!" said Reid, looking up at him as he frantically shook his head. He seemed to be getting increasingly panicked. "I don't need blood tests…" he insisted, "I've told you, I just drank too much… Will you all stop overreacting?!"

"I don't think anyone is overreacting!" replied the doctor, frowning a little as he looked around the room.

Reid had clearly been out of bed and closed the blinds, despite how painful it would have been for him to walk in his condition. The room was decidedly dark and gloomy now, making the doctor wonder if his patient had a headache or some other light sensitivity. The sooner he got some blood tests and a head CT the better, he thought to himself. God knows what drugs the unfortunate young man had been given!

"People are just worried about you…" he continued, "And I think it's fair to say that your behaviour might be a little out of character?"

"How would you know that?!" snapped Reid, "You don't even know me!"

"Forgive me, but I think it highly unlikely that a federal agent, and man of your academic standing, would go running around the streets naked…" he said, raising an eyebrow at him "…and I happen to know that you hadn't been drinking enough for you to lose consciousness."

They'd run a basic blood alcohol test when he'd first been brought in, but hadn't been able to run a full set of tox screens. Once he'd regained consciousness, he'd begun refusing treatment, and they couldn't take blood without his consent. They hadn't even been able to attach a heart monitor. If he kept this up, they were going to need a psych evaluation to say that he was incompetent, and then the decision would fall to his medical proxy (if he ever got here). They'd paged Psychology for a consultation but no-one had appeared as yet.

"I just want to make sure you haven't had a head injury" he said, looking at him with concern, "…or anything else that we should be worried about."

Reid pursed his lips and looked out the window. "I just want to go home" he said, sounding like a petulant child, "I'm just tired."

"I understand that…" replied the doctor, sitting down on the side of his bed with a sympathetic little head tilt, "But you were out cold when those people found you… and we just want to find out what happened… and make sure that you're okay"

He was using his _'now, now, be a good little patient'_ voice and giving him his warmest smile.

"Please, Dr Reid?" he coaxed, "It won't take long… just a couple of blood tests… and if you're okay with it, I'd like to take a look at those wounds on your neck." There were two small circular marks on the side of his neck. From a distance, they looked like the burns from a Taser gun.

Reid's hand shot up to his throat, more out of reflex than anything else, and his eyes widened a little. "I'm okay!" he said, jumping up off the bed on the side opposite the doctor. "I just want to go home…" He wobbled a little, having to catch the side of the bed to steady himself. He was obviously quite dizzy.

"Dr Reid, please?" pleaded the doctor, "You're in no fit state to go home!"

He could see that the patient had his eyes closed and seemed to be swaying a little. He came around to Reid's side of the bed and tried to take hold of his arm.

"Get off me!" screamed Reid, flinching away from him quite violently and backing up against the wall, "Don't touch me!" He looked frightened.

"Okay!" said Dr James, holding both hands up in an attempt to calm him, "No touching… Just… Can you please get back into bed?"

"No!" he snapped, giving the doctor a big shove in the middle of the chest and pushing past him, "I'm discharging myself!"

"That's really not a good idea!" said the doctor, catching up to him and holding the door closed, "Please, Dr Reid? Be reasonable! You're not a well man!"

"I don't care!" growled Reid, shoving him again so hard that he landed on the floor, "I'm leaving… You can't keep me prisoner!" Dr James stared up at him in shock, as he watched him pull the door open, and barge out into the hallway. He hadn't expected him to react so violently or for a man so thin to be so strong. He was too stunned to react immediately.

Morgan and Garcia stood up, looking surprised as they saw their colleague run past them in the waiting area. In a flash of white, with his hospital gown gaping open at the back, he was gone!

"What the…?!" said Morgan, as he saw Dr James come running past them too. "Reid?!" he shouted, running down the hallway after them, only to find Dr James, standing there looking confused. Reid was nowhere to be seen. Just two long corridors with lots of open doorways! He could have gone anywhere!

"He's gone" said Dr James, looking left and then right, "I can't believe how fast he ran… especially injured the way he is… I don't even know which way he went!"

"Okay" said Morgan, as Garcia caught up with them, "I'll go this way, you go that way… and Baby Girl, you check the stairwells!"

With that, they ran off in different directions.

Reid stood inside one of the patient's rooms with his back against the wall. He was out of breath, and feeling faint, but he couldn't let them catch him! He had to get out of here before they found out what really happened! He couldn't let anyone know the truth! He froze stock still, holding his breath, as Dr James stopped in the doorway.

' _Please?! Just move on!'_ he pleaded with him silently, _'Just keep on going! I'm not in here!'_

The doctor looked inside the darkened room, but all he could see was the body of an elderly man, with that soft 'suck whoosh' sound of a ventilator going on and on. After a moment, he moved on down the hallway.

' _Thank God!'_ thought Reid, as he listened to the footsteps growing ever more distant.

Now was his chance!

He went to the locker beside the man's bed and opened it. There was a gym bag inside and he sighed with relief when he unzipped it to find a selection of folded up clothes. It was the clothing of an eighty-year-old man, and although not dissimilar to something he might wear himself, they were clearly for someone much fatter and shorter than him. He pulled the brown corduroy pants and flannel shirt out of the bag, and threw them on as quickly as he could, fastening the belt as tight as possible. He said a silent 'thank you' when he found a raincoat in the bag and slipped that on too. He was going to need the hood!

Sticking his head out into the hallway to check for the doctor, or the others, he saw that the way was clear. It was now or never!

Within a few minutes, he was out, and running for all he was worth. The streets passed in a blur as he ran and ran... His feet burned because he wasn't wearing any shoes, and the ground was hot from the midday sun, but he just kept going. People were stopping to stare because he must have looked so wild-eyed and desperate. Added to that his obvious injuries and strange attire. No wonder people were staring!

He had no idea where he was going, or what he was going to do when he got there, but his every instinct told him that he had to run!

One thought, and one thought only, ran through his head.

He had to get away!


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, so this one is shorter than usual but I'm thinking I might make the chapters a bit shorter and try to update a bit more regularly. Let me know what you think. Too short?**

 **Thanks again to my reviewers (Pembie, Jesuslover123, soph316517, Yeegaber, and spxxxxx). You guys are great!**

* * *

 **Sunday morning, before Reid was brought to the hospital...**

Reid limped along the darkened city street, hugging his arms around his chest, and trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone. Not that he could see straight anyway.

On one side of the street were dilapidated buildings, some of them boarded up and derelict, and some of them simply fallen into disrepair. There seemed to be broken windows everywhere but some of them had been patched up with cardboard and packaging tape. Everything had a look of squalor. Of being uncared for… On the other side was an open area of wasteland that ran down to some railway tracks and the underpass of a bridge. There was a lot of rubbish lying about. Bin bags, and cardboard boxes, and a few stolen shopping trolleys that had seen better days. It was a very rough area to say the least.

All around him were unknown and hostile looking faces. People were staring at him as he made his way past. Some of them even stopped in their tracks to turn and watch after him. Maybe it was the fact that he had no clothes on, only an old blanket he'd found in a doorway wrapped around his shoulders? And maybe it was the fact that he was barefoot and there was blood and dirt all over him? Not that they would never have seen that before… But maybe it was because he just looked so lost and frightened? Nobody stopped to help him but he did seem to be drawing a lot of attention wherever he went. He couldn't help feeling threatened.

And scared.

Hurt as he was, he had a vague mental image of an injured wildebeest, limping along on the edge of a herd, just waiting for a lion or a hyena to pick him out as easy prey. Is that what it was? Could they smell the blood in the air?

Distantly, he knew that something terrible was wrong with him, but right now, he couldn't completely process what that was. He knew that he was bleeding because he could see the blood, and feel it tickling his legs as it ran down his skin, but he didn't know why he was bleeding or even from what part of his body. His legs were shaking with every step, and he was somewhat aware of being in pain, but at the same time, he felt strangely numb. It was like there was a disconnect somewhere, like the wires between his body and his brain had been cut. He couldn't make sense of any of it. He couldn't remember what had happened or how he'd got here. All he knew was that he had to keep walking. He was going somewhere…

But it wasn't like he knew where he was going. His eidetic memory seemed to have let him down tonight, no longer supplying the useful bits of information about landmarks that would have helped him to navigate. It was like it had all been wiped. His usually busy mind was slow and disinterested tonight. He had no idea where he was right now. That alone should have frightened him, but it didn't.

He felt strangely numb.

He was just trudging forward. Endlessly forward, in a mindless sort of way. He was shivering now, but his feet were badly blistered, and the skin on his face felt hot and horribly tight like he had sunburn.

"Hey, watch it, creep!" someone warned him, shoving him in the middle of the chest. It was a woman's voice.

"Sorry" he mumbled, glancing up at her only for a moment before stepping out of her path. It was a rough looking young girl that he'd just bumped into. She was glaring at him with such hostility that he didn't know where to look.

"You will be, if you ever touch me again!" she snarled, as she pushed on past him, "Pervert!"

He stood against the wall and watched as she walked away. She was very young to be out on the street alone so late at night. He didn't think that she could be more than maybe 16 years old, and this was a very rough part of the city. There were prostitutes and pimps, and drug dealers, on every corner. Maybe she was a prostitute, he thought sadly.

Every doorway seemed to harbour a hopeless body in a sleeping bag, or maybe even two. There were even a couple of burnt out cars and he'd nearly stepped on a used syringe more than once, which was why he'd been keeping his eyes fixed on the sidewalk.

He tried to start moving again, but he staggered a little, and had to catch hold of a railing to keep himself from falling over. He felt so dizzy!

As his head began to clear, he gradually became aware of a strange gnawing pain in his stomach, and it took him some time to realise what it was. He was hungry. He couldn't remember the last time that he'd eaten, and as he licked his bruised and split lips, he realised that he couldn't remember drinking anything either.

He would have to fix that. In a way, he felt better now that he had a clear objective. He needed to get some water and something to eat. Everything else could wait...

If he'd been in his right mind, he might have noticed the puddle of blood on the ground where he'd been standing, and he might have realised that an ambulance was the more urgent thing.

Instead, he took a few deep breaths and then pushed off again.

He staggered down the street until the end of the block, and stopped when he saw a rubbish bin with a discarded paper takeaway cup sitting on top. As distasteful as it was to drink the dregs of someone else's soda, he couldn't resist. He made a grab for it and ripped the plastic lid with the straw off the top. Inside was about an inch of cola which had already started eating through the paper at the bottom of the cup. He wasted no time in throwing it back and draining it completely. It was sickly sweet and not at all what he was craving but it was better than nothing.

With that, he stumbled the few steps from the bin to the nearest doorway and collapsed onto the step outside. He couldn't continue any farther.

He set the paper cup on the step and wrapped his arms around himself. He was shivering badly. If he'd been fully compos mentis he might have realised that he had a high fever and that he needed to go to the hospital, but things weren't registering with him as they normally would. He just couldn't interpret his body's needs beyond the very basics of food and water. He stared blankly into space, his teeth chattering behind bruised lips.

He jumped when he heard loud voices at the end of the street. A handful of young people were making their way down the street towards him, joking and laughing amongst themselves. He tensed, drawing into himself as they got closer. His mind wasn't functioning fully but his body was reacting nonetheless. It was screaming 'danger!' He hid his face behind the blanket when they drew level with him.

"Here you go, dude" said a young voice, and then he heard a handful of change being dropped in his paper cup.

He was too dazed to say thank you, but his mind foggily made the connection, and he realised that it looked like he was begging.

' _Am I a beggar?'_ he asked himself, wondering if this was something he did regularly. He didn't think that it was, because something about it made him feel uneasy and a little embarrassed… Still, he couldn't be sure, because for the life of him, he couldn't bring to mind what he actually did do. He had no idea what his name was, or what he did as a job, or even if he had any family. He looked at his hands and saw no wedding ring… so, probably not? But everything was a blank right now.

Should he have been worried about that? He wasn't sure.

He put his hand on his leg out of instinct, obviously looking for a phone, but when his hand made contact with bare skin, he suddenly became aware that he was naked. Shouldn't he have had some clothes, he wondered? Maybe that was why he was so cold?

As another small group of strangers drew level with where he was sitting, they glanced at him in a pitying way, mumbled half-hearted apologies, and then just scooted on by. They looked young and drunk, and very giddy, but no-one thought to help the man sitting naked and bleeding on the step in front of them. To them, he was just another bum. A burden on society.

Another young couple did the same thing a few moments later but they didn't even acknowledge him. The woman simply gripped her purse a little closer in case he might try to steal it, and then sped up to get past him faster.

Only one man stopped, but he said that he had no money, and handed him a cigarette instead.

No-one else gave him any money. No-one wanted to know…

After a while, he curled up on the step and simply watched the people walking past. It was like he was invisible. As though he didn't exist. He felt separate, somehow. Distanced from everything… even from his own bruised and bleeding body…

It was like he didn't belong to this world anymore…

But suddenly, he became aware of a presence and it jolted him from his stupor. There _was_ someone watching him. Someone to whom he wasn't invisible! He didn't know where he was, but he could feel his eyes on him, and it was making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was like there was a small voice inside his head, saying _'He's here… He's watching you… You can feel it!'_

He stared around him, searching the faces of all the people passing by, searching the doorways up and down the street, searching the windows of the buildings opposite… _He_ was here somewhere! He just couldn't see him!

He could feel his heart thumping as he began to get more and more anxious.

"Where are you?!" he said under his breath.

He needed to know where he was, in order to know which way to run. He got cautiously to his feet, getting ready to bolt if he needed to, and did a slow sweep of all the doorsteps on the other side of the street.

"Where are you?!" he muttered to himself again.

That's when he saw him! Messy dark hair and black clothes... That same predatory gaze. That same cold stare…

Suddenly he was running again. Running for all he was worth! Pounding the city sidewalks despite the pain in his swollen and blistered feet. He kept looking behind him to check that he wasn't being followed. He couldn't see him! He didn't know where he was!

He stopped for a moment because he was out of breath, and incredibly hot, and he immediately staggered because he was still feeling dizzy. His vision began to go funny, but he glanced sideways and saw a darkened alleyway. An animalistic instinct had taken over, not fully forming into verbal thoughts. It wasn't like he was thinking ' _Maybe I could hide in there for a while?'_ , but his body took him there with that express intention in mind. He might as well have been a feral cat looking for something to hide under.

He staggered his way up the alleyway, feeling weak and shaky, and squinting to try to see straight. Right at the end, he found some steps, and what looked like a boarded-up doorway. His body decided to sit there. No-one would see him from the street from here, it reasoned.

He'd be safe here.

He lowered himself painfully onto the step and curled up against the wooden boarded doorway, dragging some of the discarded cardboard around him, partly for warmth and partly for camouflage.

And then he shut his eyes…


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: A huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment (Cherubim22, JessicaRae95, Yeegaber, LostOceanKit, Pembie, and Jesuslover123). I really appreciate all the support.**

 **I hope the time jumps in this story aren't too confusing? I'm trying to tell the story in a way that creates a sort of mystery, so I'm coming at it from two points in time, one is told in linear fashion from the night in which the team went out for drinks on Thursday night, and the other jumps off from the point at which Reid is brought into hospital. The two will meet up eventually and all will become clear…**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4**

 **Back to Thursday night (after the nightclub)…**

"This is me" said Kris, giggling in an anxious way as he fumbled with the keys to his hotel room. He seemed excited. So much so that he couldn't get his fingers to work properly and he ended up dropping them on the floor. "Sorry!" he laughed, as he bent over to pick them up, "Butter fingers!" He also seemed a little drunk.

Reid gave him a nervous smile. He didn't know what had possessed him to come back here with him, to a _hotel room_ of all places?! What was he doing?!

"Don't worry" he said, as he watched the other man unlock the door, "It's fine."

' _Is it fine?'_ he asked himself, _'Is it really?!'_

Kris pushed the door open, revealing a hotel room, with romantic lighting and a big double bed right in the middle. It was one of those high-end boutique type places, with lots of dark wood, and dipped lighting, but crisp white bed linen. It had a view of the park and all one side of the room was glass. He dropped the keys on the table by the door and turned with a little smile.

"Well?" he asked, as Reid dithered in the doorway, "Are you coming in or what?"

"Uhhh… yeah" mumbled Reid, as he stepped inside, "Just for one, though, yeah?"

He didn't know why he'd accepted this invitation. He'd been invited back for a drink, but it wasn't like there was any doubt about what that meant. If they'd wanted another drink, they could have stayed in the bar. Coming back here was for one reason, and one reason only. They both knew it!

The thought of having sex with someone, both disgusted and intrigued him.

He'd never enjoyed sex before, but then he'd never had sex with a man before either, so maybe it would make all the difference? Maybe _this_ was what he'd been missing out on for all these years?!

' _Maybe I'm gay'_ he tried to tell himself, _'Maybe that's why I've never liked sex with women… How will I know if I never try it?"_

Deep down, he knew that it wasn't true.

"Sure…" said Kris, with a knowing little smile, "What d'ya feel like?" He headed over to the minibar, crouching down in front of it, and opening the door. "Sooo… we've got whiskey, vodka, gin…" he said, moving the little bottles about, "Um… beer… wine?"

"Vodka?" said Reid, shifting from one foot to the other in an anxious sort of way, "With Coke?"

Kris nodded and pulled one of the little bottles out of the fridge to set on the counter above him, followed by a small red can. As he rummaged around in the fridge a little more, trying to decide what to have himself, Reid couldn't resist having a sneaky little look at his butt. His vision was a little blurred but he had to admit, Kris did have a nice body. He was toned, but not one of those muscle-head gym guys, and he had nice tanned skin. He could do a lot worse, he thought to himself.

' _But am I physically attracted to him?'_ he asked himself, _"Do I want to have sex with him?'_

He really didn't know. He couldn't even figure out why he was having these thoughts. To be fair, it wasn't like he'd _never_ thought about it… but this was different. He felt strange and relaxed… but anxious too… and almost… _'horny'_? Was this what other people felt? He didn't know what to do with himself, but when he spotted a leather armchair he decided to go and sit in it. Maybe he'd look less nervous if he was sitting down? Maybe he'd _feel_ less nervous? Anything was worth a try!

"I'll just get the glasses" said Kris, giving him a little wink as he walked past him. The glasses were in the bathroom.

Reid watched him go. He looked at the shape of his back and shoulders as he walked away from him. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to have those arms around him and that naked body pressed against his own. It would be very different from his previous experiences with women, that was for sure! For one thing, it was clear that Kris would be the one in control, and that he would have to take the more submissive role. He was pretty sure that he was going to be the 'bottom' if it ever came to it and that really frightened him. He wondered if it was going to hurt. He hoped not! But then again, maybe he'd enjoy it? Gay men obviously did! They couldn't all be masochists!

"So" said Kris, coming back in with the empty glasses, "Let's have that drink then!"

"Yeah… um…" stammered Reid, "Cool… Thanks…" He picked up a leaflet off the arm of the chair and pretended to find it fascinating. He couldn't really see straight enough to read it but he needed to do something to distract himself! _'How drunk am I?!_ ' he asked himself. Alarm bells were faintly ringing in the back of his head…

"You wanted ice, right?" checked Kris... When he didn't get an answer, he turned to look at him and repeated it in a louder voice. "ICE?"

"What?!" asked Reid, jumping in his seat and dropping the leaflet. "Oh, yeah, sorry… yeah, ice" he said, picking it up again with an embarrassed little smile, "Sorry"

"Relax!" said Kris, pouring the drinks into the glasses and then handing his to him. He gave him a sympathetic little head tilt and said, "I know this is your first time."

"What?!" asked Reid, looking up at him in shock, "How… I mean…?!"

"Oh, come on!" laughed Kris, "You've got 'first-timer' written all over you!"

"Thanks" said Reid, flushing a little red and looking down at the floor. This was mortifying!

"Don't be embarrassed!" said Kris, lifting his gin and tonic and coming to sit on the arm of the chair beside him, "Everyone has a first time…" He took a sip of his gin and gave a little shrug. "I mean… I don't know if this is just some experimental phase for you…" he said, "If it is, that's cool…I don't mind… I mean, we don't even have to do anything if you don't want to…"

"I uh…" said Reid, giving an embarrassed little shrug. He didn't know what to say.

"Seriously!" continued Kris, "If you just wanna have a drink and then say goodnight… That's fine."

Reid looked up at him again and gave him a relieved little smile. It was certainly true that he liked him. He'd really enjoyed tonight in the bar. This was the most fun that he'd had with someone in a very long time, and he felt a strange bond with this man that he couldn't explain. They kind of ' _got_ ' each other and there was definitely an attraction there! It might not have been sexual, but it was definitely there! He found him funny, and very charismatic, and he liked it when he smiled… but he wasn't so sure about seeing him naked. The thought of having to deal with another man's penis made him feel a little bit sick…

But then he'd never really felt that attracted to anyone. He certainly didn't like lady's bits, so it wasn't about him being the wrong gender. He just didn't want to be that up close and personal with anyone else's genitals… Male or female. He even had mixed feelings about his own.

But maybe this whole sex thing was just something that he needed to get past? Maybe if they had sex tonight, then it might be easier the next time? Maybe he'd just get used to it, like having an embarrassing medical exam that got a little bit easier each time you had to do it? Not something you enjoyed, but not that bad once you stopped worrying about it.

…And maybe it wouldn't actually be that bad? If it wasn't, then maybe he'd be able to do it more regularly, and actually have a 'normal-ish' relationship with someone? Maybe even with Kris?

If he could have a boyfriend that he got on with as well as he did Kris, then maybe he could put up with having to sleep with him every now and then? It might even be easier with a man because he'd be able to take a more passive role? _'Lie there and think of England'_ , so to speak.

Maybe it was just the price he'd have to pay for companionship?

He gave Kris a little smile and started to drink his vodka. "I… I'm just a little nervous" he said.

"Nothing a little Dutch courage won't cure" laughed Kris, as he clinked glasses with Reid, and then drank a gulp of his drink down. He grinned from ear to ear when he saw his guest do the same.

Reid let out a little 'aaah' after taking a particularly large gulp and smiled back. He was feeling more relaxed… and decidedly more drunk.

"I mean it though…" said Kris, with a little smirk, "I really enjoyed tonight… We don't have to do anything. Just stick around and have a few drinks, yeah?… We'll get to know each other… See if we wanna take this any further… Maybe we could do dinner next week?"

"That sssounds good" said Reid, wondering at the strange sensation in his tongue. It was like it was suddenly too large for his mouth and far too heavy. He faintly began to worry when his next sentence came out even more slurred. "I… I fffeeeel a little sssstrange… My… mmmouth w-won't work…"

"Probably just dry mouth" said Kris, leaning forward and helping Reid to lift the glass to his mouth again. "Atta boy!" he laughed, as he tipped the contents into his mouth, "Drink up!"

As Reid swallowed down the sickly-sweet vodka and Coke mix, he became distantly aware of a sharp and bitter aftertaste, and it was then that a little voice in the back of his head hissed at him.

' _You've been drugged!'_ it said, a tone of contempt in its voice, _'And it's nobody's fault but your own! Some FBI agent you are?!'_

Had his synapses been firing at their normal rate, and his muscles unhindered by muscle relaxants, he would have known to get himself out of there as fast as possible. As it was, he couldn't move an inch. His whole body felt like lead, even as his heart began to thump so fast and hard he could hear it in his ears.

"I… I wwwannna…" he managed to slur out as he tried and failed to get up.

Suddenly the other man reached for him, pulling him forward by his shirt, and planting a forceful kiss on his lips. He couldn't do anything but let his mouth, and his breath, be taken by force. A large tongue forced its way between his lips before he could stop it and suddenly, it was all he could do not to choke on it. The man was kissing in a way that meant to take possession, nothing sweet or tender about it. A kiss that would leave bruises…

' _Oh God!'_ he screamed in his head, as he gagged on the other man's tongue, _'What do I do?! I'm an FBI agent, for Christ's sake! I should know what to do!'_ But his drug beleaguered brain could offer no help.

"Oh?!" said Kris, pulling back for a moment with a lascivious and teasing grin, "Dr Reid?! I had no idea you felt that way!"

"Bleeez… wwannnnago" slurred Reid, as he began to try to move away. He just about managed to get to his feet before falling backwards into the seat again. "I… nnnneeed to…"

"Okay" said Kris, with an amused little snort and a wave of his arm to indicate the door, "Go ahead… See how far you get!"

Reid frowned as he tried again to get to his feet. He shook his head to try to clear his vision but that only made matters worse, a wave of nausea rising inside him. On the outside, he looked too out of it to be having any kind of clear thought process, but inside he was panicking! His heart was beating so fast it felt like it might burst. He clamped his eyes shut and managed to lever himself to his feet, only to collapse again.

' _What are you doing?!_ ' he screamed at himself, ' _Get up! You know you won't get another chance! Just get up and walk to the door! You can do this!'_ Distantly, he wondered what Morgan would say if he could see him now. That thought filled him with a deep sense of humiliation. _'Not helping!'_ he growled at himself, _'Get out first, beat yourself up later!'_

He took a deep breath and pushed himself up off the seat again with great effort. His legs felt like columns of jelly, nowhere near strong enough to support his weight, and when he willed himself to move one foot forward, he staggered immediately and slumped over the arm of the chair. At least, he remained upright, he thought to himself.

"Come on then!" taunted Kris, "Let's see what you got?!" He made a show of motioning towards the door in a way that said _'I won't stop you'_.

"Fffuhg yooo" slurred Reid, steeling himself to try to walk again. This time he managed three steps before he keeled off to the side like he was walking on a rocky ship. This time he went crashing to the floor, unable to even break his fall. He couldn't seem to move his arms.

"Well, you didn't get too far at all, did you?" laughed Kris, in a cruel sort of way, "So, maybe you should just stay, huh? I mean, there's definitely room if you want to sleep over?"

Reid let out a sigh of defeat and closed his eyes. Sleep was calling him. ' _This is it'_ he told himself, ' _This is how Spencer Reid dies…"_ And as everything faded to black, he had one final fleeting thought - _'I wonder if the team will ever find my body?_ '

* * *

 **A/N:** **To the huge number of people out there who are reading this, it would be really really nice if you could leave a small comment. Let me know what you think? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Anything you think I need to do differently?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Okayyyy… so… I should probably start with an apology for keeping you waiting so long for this chapter. It's been a very busy few months (guilty face) and if I'm completely honest, I've had the worst case of writer's block. I've tried to write this chapter many many times and had to scrap it. I don't really know why I've struggled with it so much (and all my other stories), but I'm hoping I've managed to get over my funk now (fingers crossed).**

 **And thank you so much to all my lovely reviewers (Yeegaber, kikij13456, JessicaRae95, Pembie, Jesuslover123, fishtrek, Cherubim22, Emobunnyme, Read More Books, and pallyndrome) for your kind words. I really really appreciate it.**

 **I hope this one is okay. It might be a bit pants, who knows… but I figure it's better to have something than nothing.**

* * *

 **Monday Morning…**

"Morgan, you know Garcia said she'd call as soon as she heard anything" said Rossi, as they pulled up outside Reid's apartment.

It was a bit of long shot but they were hoping that Reid might have made his way home. Although, without money, a phone, or the keys to his unit, they had no idea how he would have gotten in. Still, they had to check.

"Staring at your cell phone every five seconds ain't gonna make it ring any sooner…" added the Italian. He looked haggard, and a little unshaven. Not his usual suave self. Not that Morgan looked much better.

"Yeah, I know" huffed Morgan, stuffing his phone back in his pocket and opening the car door, "But I can't just sit around doing nothing… The kid's hurt… real bad this time… and God knows where he is now."

They each got out and began to walk across the car park to the apartment building. Morgan noted that Reid's car was still in the car park which wasn't all that odd given that Reid rarely drove. But still, he thought they should check it out. They checked the doors and found them locked, and then peered inside. He clearly wasn't sleeping in it, so they headed towards the apartment.

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Morgan fished in his other pocket for the emergency set of keys to Reid's apartment. They'd all handed in a spare set so the team would have access in emergency situations such as this… or maybe not this exactly, but just in case… Memories of George Foyet were still fresh in everyone's minds after all.

He Morgan pulled out a small blue keychain that looked suspiciously like a Tardis. He saw Rossi squinting at it and gave him a little roll of the eyes. They all knew about Reid's obsession with Dr Who, and thanks to many a confusing conversation with both the young genius and their resident Tech Specialist, neither of them were in any doubts about what it was supposed to be.

Under any other circumstances Morgan probably would have made a joke about the kid getting cornier by the second. But right now, it just didn't seem right.

Still, it did make him want to smile. Reid and Garcia's keyrings were the only ones with personalities. When Hotch had dumped the keys out on the desk this morning, there were five sets of keys attached to brown or black leather keyrings and another two that stood out like a sore thumb. None of the leather keyrings said ' _I'm an interesting person'_ or identified the owner in any way. All they said was _'I'm a grown-up FBI agent and I'm no fun'_. Reid's and Garcia's, on the other hand, were screaming personality, and were also the only ones that could be identified at a glance. Reid's was geeky and childish, while Garcia's managed to be purple, fluffy, and sparkly all at the same time. God, how he loved those two!

As the two men made their way up the stairs, Morgan taking two steps at a time to get there faster, he glanced back at Rossi. The man looked just as worried as he felt. What if Reid wasn't here?! If he wasn't here, then how were they going to find him?! The kid didn't have a phone so they couldn't trace him that way, and short of driving around shouting his name like he was a stray dog, they were running out of ideas. The APB had turned up nothing. How could a half naked man manage to escape a hospital without anyone noticing?!

Morgan reached the door with the key in his hand but Rossi put his hand on his arm to stop him.

"Knock first" Rossi the older man warned him, "I know Reid's hurt, and we both know the man has no business being out of the hospital, but I don't think he'd appreciate you just walking in on him. There's a fine line here between acceptable concern and a breach of privacy… especially, given what's happened."

They'd both seen the police reports. Even if the doctor hadn't confirmed it, the police report and the statement Hotch had taken from the paramedic and the man who'd found Reid in the alley had more than filled in the blanks. How Reid was out here running around like this with the kind of injuries he'd sustained was beyond comprehension. Fight or flight instincts were obviously a powerful thing.

"Yeah… I know" sighed Morgan, "It's just… I mean, this is Reid… He could be even more hurt… Christ, he could be dead for all we know!"

"He's not" said Rossi, shaking his head, "We'd know if he was…"

"You can't know that" said Morgan, "People just go missing… We, of all people know that."

Rossi nodded wearily, and then turned his attention back to Reid's door. "Go on" he said.

Morgan gave a tight little nod before turning back to the door and called out Reid's loudly. When he got no answer, he banged a whole lot louder and yelled Reid's name over and over.

"C'mon, man?!" he yelled, "If you're in there, Reid, open the door!"

After a moment, when there was no sign of movement inside, he gave an exasperated sigh and stuck the key in the lock. Opening the door, the first thing that struck him was how dark the apartment was. All the blinds had been pulled down, plunging the place into a depressing kind of gloom.

"Reid?!" he shouted, as he and Rossi cautiously entered their friend's apartment, "Kid?! If you're here, can you let me know?! I'm getting seriously freaked out."

The place was deathly quiet.

"Reid, we're coming in!" shouted Rossi.

They slowly made their way through his living room and Rossi went toward the kitchen while Morgan went down the hallway towards the bedroom. Both men kept their hands on their guns.

"Reid, you here?" called Morgan, as he slowly pushed the bedroom door open.

"He's not in the kitchen!" shouted Rossi.

"Not here either" replied Morgan when he heard the older man approach behind him.

Reid's bed was still neatly made. The room dark and forebodingly empty.

"Does Reid always keep the blinds closed?" asked Morgan, walking over towards one of the windows. He lifted the corner of the pulled blind and peeked outside. It was a bright sunny day outside. Reid had been missing all night. "Where are you kid?" he asked sadly.

"We'll find him" said Rossi, somewhat redundantly. They both knew the statistics on missing people and the diminishing likelihood of them returning alive the longer they were missing. The fact that Reid would have been the first to spout off those statistics just made this even worse.

Morgan gave a little snort and let the blind drop. He pulled out his phone, checking it for the millionth time today, and sighed when he saw that there were still no new messages. Garcia was doing her thing of course, burning the candle at both ends as she scoured hours of CCTV footage to try to locate their missing genius. So far, she hadn't managed to find anything and the last phone call Morgan had had from her had been verging on the hysterical. He was worried about her too. JJ seemed to be holding things together surprisingly well, throwing herself into the search and refusing to give in to her fears, but that would only last so long. She was out there now, driving around with Prentiss. They'd said that they'd let the rest of the team know the moment they had any leads. Hotch, stoic as ever, had been scouring the area around the hospital, taking statements, and looking for anyone that might have seen Reid leave. No-one on the team had had any sleep last night.

It was surreal having to search for one of the team in the same way they would if he was one of their victims, and canvassing the local residents didn't seem to be getting them was surreal having to search for one of the team in the same way they would if he was a victim in one of their cases. Sadly, they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. There was no sign of him.

"All night!" groaned Morgan, "He's been gone all night! …And you know he's not in any fit state to be wandering about out there…."

"Yeah, I kno…" Rossi began to say.

Suddenly, there was a loud clatter, a sort of scuffling sound, and the muffled sound of someone cursing.

"Reid?" called Morgan, pressing"Didn't you check the bathroom?!" said Rossi, spinning round to look at the door to the ensuite bathroom. The noise seemed to have come from in there.

"I… I hadn't…" stammered Morgan, realising that he hadn't done a proper sweep of the apartment like he would if this was a crime scene. He hadn't checked the bathroom! What a rookie mistake?!

"Reid?" he called out, closing the distance between him and the bathroom door within seconds. Finding the door locked, he pressed his ear up against it and listened for any sound inside, "Kid, tell me that's you in there?!"

There was no answer, but his eyes widened when he realised that he could hear crying. It wasn't loud, but it was the unmistakable sound of someone softly sobbing. "Reid?!" he called out again, "Hey c'mon, Kid?! We just want to help… Please let us in?!"

Rossi pressed his ear against the door too and locked eyes with Morgan. He made a little grimace when he realised what he was listening to. "Hey, c'mon, kiddo?" he pleaded, "We've been driving around like crazy looking for you… You've had us all worried… We… we just want to help… Can you open the door for us?"

Morgan dropped to his knees and looked through the keyhole. He gave a sigh of relief at seeing Reid sitting on the floor of the bathroom, and glanced up at Rossi. "He's here" he said, with a little smile. He hadn't been able to see him all that well, but it was undeniably Spencer Reid.

Rossi took his phone out to text the others, the tension in his shoulders seeming to melt away. They'd found him!

Morgan turned back to the keyhole and put both hands up cupping around the keyhole to try to see better. What he saw made his stomach clench. Reid was not good! He couldn't see his face, but judging by the constant rocking motion of his body, he could see how distressed he was. His long gangly body was folded up into the smallest ball, his chin on his knees, and both arms pulled up in front of his face as he pulled at his long hair. Most of his body was covered and he seemed to be wearing 'old man' clothes, but his long skinny arms were a mess of cuts of bruises. Not only that, but his feet looked cut to ribbons as though he'd been running on broken glass. There were blood smears all over the floor and all over his newly acquired clothing. What the hell had happened?!

"Hey Spence, can you please just open the door?" asked Morgan, trying to stay as calm as possible and using the softer voice that he tended to use with child victims, "Everything's gonna be okay… We're gonna get you some help."

"No!" came a sudden throaty cry, "Just go?! Please just go?!" The rocking motion picked up momentum and Morgan could see him hitting himself in the head over and over. "I don't want you here… I don't want you here…" he began to repeat almost under his breath, "I don't want you here…"

"Hey, hey, hey… Don't do that! Don't do that, Pretty Boy! …Don't hurt yourself, please?!" coaxed Morgan. He turned back to Rossi with wide frightened eyes and mouthed ' _Go get something to open the door'_. He knew they needed to get in there right away. Of course, it would have been better if Reid had let them in himself, but they couldn't afford to let him hurt himself either.

Rossi nodded and ran towards the front door. He was pretty sure he had tools that they could use to pick the lock, and if that failed then there was always the crow bar in the boot of the car.

"We're not going anywhere…" said Morgan, looking back through the keyhole, "Not till we've seen you… not until I know you're okay." He really didn't want to break the door down if there was any other option, but he would if he had to.

"I'm fine" said Reid, between gritted teeth, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine…" he began to repeat over and over under his breath.

Morgan shook his head. That might have been more convincing if Reid wasn't still curled in a ball and rocking back and forth in a desperate attempt to self soothe. He glanced back out towards the hallway, wondering what was taking Rossi so long.

"Listen, kid" he began, gazing sadly at the man he thought of as his 'little brother', "Whatever's happened, I'm sure we can figure things out together? I mean, come on? You really think I can just walk away when I know you're hurt… When you're scared? You're like family to me, Spencer, and one thing you should know about me by now is that I stick by my family… So, I aint goin' nowhere. You can shout at me all you like, but I'm not leaving."

"But I don't want you here!" sobbed Reid, "I don't want you… I don't want you… I don't want you…

"I know that's what you think you want" said Morgan, trying to ignore the fact that the kid was still rocking back and forth and didn't seem completely with it, "You think you want to deal with this on your own, shut it down, pretend it didn't happen… But kid, listen, that's not gonna help. It's what I did, and it was the worst decision of my life. It messed me up for such a long time. I don't want that for you."

Morgan closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door. No matter how much time went by, it still pained him to talk about this, but he was going to try for Reid's sake.

"When… when you found out about _me_ …" he began quietly, "…and… and what Bu… Buford did to me… It didn't change the way you thought about me, did it? It didn't make you think any less of me, or make you not want to be my friend? It didn't mean I couldn't still do my job… Why do you think this would be any different?"

"This isn't the same…" Reid began to say but Morgan interrupted him.

"No, it's not" he agreed, "But I think it means I can understand…"

"No, you can't" insisted Reid, "No-one can…"

"Try me" said Morgan, gazing sadly at his friend, "You won't know until you try, will you kid? …Come on, it has to be better than sitting in there all day?"

"Please, just leave me alone…" pleaded Reid, a defeated and tired quality to his voice.

"No can do" sighed Morgan, "I can sit here for as long as it takes…"

Suddenly, Reid lifted his head and stared straight at the door ahead of him. Morgan gave a little gasp. It was the first time that he'd seen Reid's face since the assault and he hadn't been fully prepared for the extent of the injuries. He looked like he'd gone a couple of rounds with a heavyweight boxer, who then for good measure had tried to throttle him. His eyes were bloodshot in the most disturbing way, something he'd only ever seen in strangulation victims.

"Oh, God, Pretty Boy…" he groaned, wanting nothing more than to take the door off its hinges this second. How could someone have done this to a man as sweet and gentle as Reid?!

"You don't understand" sobbed Reid, tears running down his bruised cheeks, "It's not the same… You don't know what happened…"

"No, I don't" sighed Morgan, "But I think I have a rough idea… C'mon, kid, please come out and talk to me?" He glanced back with a sigh of relief when he saw Rossi returning with a crow bar and a small toolkit.

Rossi crouched down beside him and unzipped the small leather pouch to reveal a lockpicking kit. "You reckon you can get it open?" he whispered to him.

"I think so" he whispered back, taking the tools out.

"Please, Morgan?!" gasped Reid, when he heard them start tinkering with the door, "Don't come in here! I don't want to talk to anybody right now… It's just… I just… I _can't_!"

"Kid" said Morgan, with an apologetic tone, "I can't leave you in here… You know that…"

"I can't!" came Reid's pained reply, "Please don't make me!"

Morgan glanced through the keyhole again and saw that Reid had stood up and was backed as far across the room as he could get. He was frantically wringing his hands together and staring around the place like a trapped animal. Lucky for them, there was no window in the bathroom so there was no possibility of escape.

Morgan shook his head sadly. They didn't have a choice. "Spence, I'm sorry, but you know we can't leave you in there forever…"

Morgan tried unsuccessfully for about ten minutes to pick the lock but it was old and seemed to have gotten a little rusted. He couldn't get the mechanism to click into place and had only succeeded in bending some of the components inside out of shape. He wasn't even sure now if Reid could unlock the door if he wanted to.

What was worse was that Reid had become increasingly distressed and had started pacing back and forth in tiny circles. He was muttering to himself like a madman and had stopped answering them some time ago.

"Spencer?" called Morgan, "I'm really sorry, kid, but I'm gonna have to break it down… I need you to remember that it's just me and Rossi here. No-one's gonna hurt you…"

At this stage, Hotch had been notified, as well as the rest of the team, and they were all on their way there.

Morgan watched with concern as Reid stopped in his tracks and turned to stare straight at him. There was a look of pure terror on his face but after a moment it went completely blank. It was like someone had turned off the lights behind his eyes. As though his mind had gone somewhere else. He watched him slowly walk toward the door but when he got too close all he could see was the brown corduroy of the old man pants he was wearing.

"Kid, you need to back up!" he shouted, "Spence, can you please move away from the door?!"

When he got no response, Morgan sat back and scowled up at Rossi. "He's standing right there!" he complained, "We can't break it down if he's right in front of it!"

Rossi gave an exasperated huff. "Clever kid"

After a moment, Morgan squinted and put his ear up against the door. He thought he could hear Reid talking. It was quiet, but he could just about make it out.

"I think… I think he's saying _'How can I explain this?'_ or something like that?" said Morgan, a look of puzzlement on his face.

Rossi put his ear against the door too. "I think he's saying we won't understand?" he whispered to Morgan, "Man, that bastard really messed him up… If I get my hands on him…"

"Join the club" sighed Morgan.

Suddenly Reid moved away from the door, walking across the room and sitting down on the floor again. Morgan peeked back through the door and frowned as he watched Reid stare at his hands like he'd never seen them before. Even from this distance he could see that all the nails were broken and a little bloody. There was black stuff under the nails as well, like mud, as though he'd been working in the garden all day.

"Kid?!" called Morgan, when he saw him begin to hyperventilate. He had wide staring eyes and he seemed fixated on his hands. It looked like he was having a flashback or a full-on panic attack… or something…

"Damn it, kid!" he grunted, jumping to his feet and grabbing the crowbar from Rossi. "Reid?!" he shouted, "C'mon, Spence, please?!"

But Reid couldn't hear him…

 _Reid pulled his aching body up and out, clambering out of the hole with great difficulty, and coughing violently as he choked soil out of his mouth. A wave of nausea hit him as soon as he reached fresh air, sending the contents of his stomach rushing up his throat and into his mouth. He hardly had time to react before bitter bile began to spew out, along with gritty clumps of mud. His stomach muscles cramped painfully, making him curl into himself as he lay on his side on the damp ground. He was shivering violently as he hugged his arms around himself. He was naked. Why-why was he naked?!_

 _He couldn't seem to remember… well, anything really… Not where he was, or why he was there, or what had happened… or even who he was. What he did know was that his head felt strange and heavy, and his whole body hurt like he'd been hit by a truck. He was covered in mud and blood and that terrified him.._

 _He flopped onto his back, breathing heavily for a few moments before lifting his head and looking around. It was pretty dark, and he really couldn't see much. Just blurry grey shapes on the ground, and the stars overhead. It was also deathly quiet._

" _H-hello?" he called out, groaning and wincing as he managed to pull himself into a sitting position, "Is anybody here?" There was no answer. He couldn't hear anyone nearby. Just the soft sound of the wind in some nearby trees._

 _He shook his head, which was a bad idea, because it sent a sharp pain up the back of his neck and into his skull. 'Mmmm' he groaned, as he brought his muddy blood-covered hands up and squeezed his hands over both temples. It felt like someone was repeatedly jamming an ice-pick though the back of his head. His stomach rebelled again and he leant over to his side to vomit. He was beyond miserable and he just wanted it to stop._

" _H-help" he coughed out as he wiped the last of the vomit from his lips. No-one came to his aid._

 _He sat for a moment, blinking into the distance, and trying to focus his bleary vision. What were all those grey rectangular shapes?_

 _He pulled himself first to his knees, crying out as a searing pain shot through his lower back and groin. It made him see stars and then vomit violently once more. When the pain and the nausea eventually receded enough for him to move, he clambered even more shakily to his feet, and stumbled forward towards one of the grey objects in the distance. Every step was agonising, like something ripping deep inside him, but he lurched forward, staggering like a drunk man, until he reached it and put his hand out towards it._

 _As soon as his hand made contact with the cold marbled stone, and he was close enough to see the engraving, he realised exactly what all the low grey rectangles were. They were gravestones!_

 _He swung his head from left to right. All he could see was a sea of gravestones… He was in a graveyard. An icy chill went down his back. What was he doing in a graveyard?! Why was he alone, and injured, and bleeding in the middle of a graveyard?!_

Suddenly the bathroom door burst open and Morgan crashed through. Reid was in a heap on the floor, shaking and hyperventilating, and scratching with both hands at the tiled floor. He'd been scratching so hard that he'd made his fingertips bleed. Morgan went straight to him and fell to his knees beside him, grabbing Reid's wrists and holding them still.

"Oh God, Kid?!" he gasped, "You okay?!"

He knew it was a stupid question but he didn't know what to say. Reid just stared through him.

Rossi had taken one look and was on the phone to emergency services. They needed to get him back to hospital as soon as possible.

"Reid?!" coaxed Morgan, as he lifted his friend's rigid body gently and put his arms around him _._ There was no response. He just heaved shallow breaths in with eyes staring wildly into the mid-distance. His whole body was tensed and he kept jerking his wrists. He didn't seem to be registering what was around him.

"Jesus, is he having a seizure or something?" asked Rossi, while still on the phone with the paramedics.

"I …I don't think so?" said Morgan, as he peered at his friend's bruised face, "I think it's like a… a panic attack or a flashback…" He leaned down to try to listen to what Reid was saying but he didn't seem to be making any sense. He seemed to be repeating the same words or 'non-words' over and over. It sounded like ' _Nose Fried Too'_ He wondered if he meant his nose hurt. It was broken, after all.

Rossi nodded and went towards the front door to wave the ambulance down.

Morgan began to rock Reid in his arms and whisper to him. "It's gonna be alright, Spence… Shhh… shhh… it's gonna be alright…" He used one hand to softly stroke his hair. Gradually he felt him begin to relax. He couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief when he saw him begin to look around and then blink up at him.

"Morgan?" asked Reid, looking up at him in confusion, "What… what are we doing on the floor?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: Okay… so this one has ended up longer than I intended but I'm not sure where I could have cut it. Oh well, hope it's okay…**

 **A huge thank you to the lovely people that reviewed the last chapter (Dextolan, Yeegaber, JessicaRae95, Pembie, Pallyndrome, and Guest). You have no idea how much your reviews mean to me. It's very hard to stay motivated if no-one says anything so I really appreciate you taking the time to write something (smiley face).**

 **(Also, I've just noticed that some stuff got messed up in the previous chapter where previous versions of the chapter got merged with the current one. Bits of sentences are missing and there are bits that are repeated. Sorry I didn't notice when I posted it! Word seems to have been acting up on me... So let me know if there's anything weird in this one.)**

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

 **Monday Evening...**

Morgan sat in the armchair beside Reid's hospital bed, nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee in his hand, and watching the slow rise and fall of his best friend's chest. He looked so weak and frail in that bed, tubes coming out of everywhere, and his face half covered with an oxygen mask. The kid had been brought back from surgery a couple of hours ago and no-one expected him to wake up for a while, but even so, he couldn't bring himself to leave him. He couldn't stand the thought of him waking up and finding himself alone again. Especially not when he was going to be in pain and confused about where he was. The ride in the ambulance had been bad enough.

The doctor's words were still ringing in his ears. ' _Bowel perforation, leading to peritonitis. A fever of 104.8, causing confusion and hallucinations. If he hadn't made it to the hospital within the next couple of hours he would have died.'_

He was kicking himself for wasting so much time trying to open that door. What if Reid had died while he and Rossi were still messing with that stupid lock?!

A text came through on his phone and he glanced down at it.

Hotch: _'I'm on my way back with your go bag so you can have a shower and get changed. No arguments. I'm bringing food too. Text me as soon as he wakes up.'_

' _Will do'_ he texted back, _'He's still asleep right now though'_.

The rest of the team had only agreed to go home under direct orders from Hotch. He'd insisted that they eat, get some rest, and pack their go bags again before they came back. Something told them that this was going to be a tough few days.

Strauss had given the go ahead for them to investigate Reid's assault (after much arm twisting from Rossi) but they couldn't afford to be dead on their feet or overly emotional from lack of sleep either. They'd all reluctantly agreed to go home, except for Morgan, of course. Someone had to stay, not just because it didn't seem right to leave Reid on his own, but because they didn't know if he was still in danger. Until they found his attacker, an armed member of the BAU team would be with him at all times.

Frustratingly, they couldn't investigate very much until they heard from Reid what had happened. The rape kit had shown obvious signs of sexual assault, but they hadn't recovered any DNA, so it seemed likely that his attacker had worn a condom. They didn't know where the assault had taken place or even when it had happened. The most obvious conclusion was that it had happened in the early hours of Friday morning after they'd left him in the nightclub, but until Reid confirmed it, they couldn't be sure. There were two full days unaccounted for.

They'd tried checking the CCTV at the bar, but the one on the main door had been faulty so they hadn't even seen him leave. Garcia had tried to track him on the street cameras outside the club but to no avail. They just weren't angled right to get a good enough shot of people leaving.

What they did know, thanks to a curtain-twitching neighbour in Reid's building, was that today had been the first time he'd returned to his apartment since Thursday afternoon… so the nightclub was looking more and more likely.

Which led them to their most likely suspect - the guy that Reid had been talking to at the club, especially since he seemed to have actively avoided the CCTV cameras, always turning his back to them at the most inopportune moments. They had a rough sketch to go on, but not an actual photo. Added to that was the fact that the team had been drinking that night and with the loud music playing, no-one had managed to catch what the man's name was. 'Chris' something they thought, although they weren't 100% sure. Even so, Garcia had begun to search for men by his name and description at the University that Reid worked at. They just hoped that Reid would give them something more to go on once he woke up.

Morgan glanced at the time on his phone and gave a heavy sigh. He'd been hanging around this room now for more than six hours, four while Reid was in surgery, and another two since he'd been brought back from recovery. He placed his cup of coffee on the floor and rubbed his face in his hands. He was tired.

He had tried to get some sleep while the kid was in surgery, but these damn chairs weren't exactly comfortable, and he hadn't been able to make his mind stop racing either. Seeing Reid like that had really scared him. He hadn't quite realised how much he cared for the younger man until he'd seen him lying there in all that blood. He'd meant what he'd said when he'd called Reid his 'family'. He couldn't bear the thought of losing him.

"Come on, man, wake up…" he pleaded, leaning forward and taking hold of Reid's limp hand. He couldn't help thinking how small and fragile it looked in comparison to his own, even with all the fingers bandaged the way they were. Just that thought brought all his protective instincts to the fore. He wanted to find whoever did this and make them hurt.

He glanced up at the IV stand and grimaced at the sight of the saline and antibiotics Reid was being given. At least, Hotch had remembered to tell them about Reid's drug issues and hadn't allowed them to give him anything that would cause him problems later. The kid didn't need that on top of everything else. This was going to be hard enough to deal with. Although, looking at his friend's poor battered body, he wondered if the non-narcotic painkillers they had him on would be enough to take the edge off. He couldn't imagine dealing with injuries like that with over-the-counter painkillers. Although it wouldn't be the first time Reid had had to do it. God, the kid was tough!

And he was going to have to be…

According to the medical examination, he had extensive bruising, both internal and external. Someone had repeatedly kicked and punched him, cracking one of his ribs through blunt force trauma, as well as breaking his nose and fracturing his cheek bone. His neck was bruised and swollen, with injuries consistent with strangulation, and he had two small circular wounds on his throat. At first glance, they'd thought they might be taser burns, but on closer examination they seemed to be puncture wounds. They still weren't sure what had caused them. He had lacerations on both his hands and feet, and all his fingernails were broken and bloodied.

There were also the injuries from the sexual assault that weren't exactly minor. He'd been bleeding quite badly when he'd first been admitted to the hospital on Sunday morning, but they'd treated that at the time as the most urgent of his injuries. The doctor said that he'd needed 6 stitches but they were relieved to report that they hadn't reopened or become infected in the time that he'd been missing.

' _Silver linings'_ Morgan had thought to himself a little bitterly. He doubted that Pretty Boy would see it that way.

Of much greater concern, however, was that Reid had deep abdominal bruising that had resulted in a bowel perforation. Peritonitis had developed, and he was lucky not to have gone into sepsis. The doctor said the pain would have been excruciating so he had no idea how Reid had been able to move around, let alone run. It had taken a four hour operation to fix the damage and he was going to be on heavy duty antibiotics for at least the next couple of weeks.

"Oh, God, Pretty Boy…" sighed Morgan, reaching out and gently brushing the younger man's hair out of his eyes, "I'm so sorry this happened to you."

He jumped a little when Reid's hand twitched in his. "Reid?!" he gasped, "Kid, you awake?!"

Reid's eyes began to flutter open.

"Reid?!" Morgan called out to him, a smile spreading across his face, "That's it, Kid, wake up. Lemme see those big brown eyes of yours…"

Reid gradually opened his bloodshot eyes and looked up at Morgan with a look of confusion on his face. "What… I… I don't…" he started to stammer, steaming up his oxygen mask and shifting a little in the bed. As soon as he moved, his face screwed up in pain and he slammed his eyes shut. "Uhhhrrrrm" he whined, gripping Morgan's hand more tightly and breathing fast, "ahh…ahhh!"

"What's wrong, Kid?" asked Morgan, getting to his feet and grabbing for the call button, "Where's it hurt?" He could see him panting with the pain.

"Ev-everywhere" Reid grunted out, pulling his hand away from Morgan to cradle the area around his belly, "My… my s-stomach… My… Oh God… Morgan, it …it h-hurts!"

* * *

Reid stiffened when he heard the door open behind him and wiped angrily at his puffy eyes. The doctors had only just left him after examining his wounds for infection and adjusting his pain medication. He _was_ feeling a little better now that the pain meds had started to kick in, a little less like he was being torn in two… but he was also very upset. He'd spent twenty minutes being poked and prodded and forced to let them touch him in places that he never wanted to be touched again. He knew that they were only doing their jobs but the whole thing had felt like another violation. Just more people doing things to his body that he didn't want them to do. He couldn't stop shaking and his face was still flushed from the humiliation of it all.

Lying with his back to an unguarded door probably wasn't the best idea when he was as frightened as he was, and when he was already in a state of hypervigilance that made him want to jump out of his skin anytime anyone moved, but facing the world was just too hard right now. Especially when he'd just cried his eyes out like a small child and made an absolute show of himself.

An FBI agent snivelling like a baby and pleading with the doctors not to touch him? Sobbing and having to be restrained because he couldn't be trusted to stay still?

Pathetic!

He'd never been so ashamed of himself in his life… or confused… or angry… He just wanted to be left alone.

More than that though, he wanted to tune the whole world out for a while. To stare at the white wall in front of him and try to forget that the world outside existed. An ugly ugly place where disgusting people did cruel and sadistic things to each other, things so depraved that it made him want to vomit and keep on vomiting till there was nothing left. Where the strong preyed on the weak, and made sure that they knew just how weak they were. Where people like him got beaten and abused and used for the amusement of others. Where no matter how much he tried to fit in with the Morgans and the Hotches of this world, he never would. He would always end up a victim. Someone to be rescued and pitied. God, how he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him...

He figured there must be some kind of bullseye on his forehead that only the strong could see… Something that marked him out as an easy target. It's the only thing that would make sense…

After all, he'd stumbled from one miserable experience to another his entire life. Picked on and rejected by his father, stripped naked and tied to goalposts by the bullies at his school, excluded and ridiculed by his classmates at college, and victimised the whole way through his academy training… Hell, even Morgan had bullied him when he'd first started with the BAU. They'd all seen the target on his forehead. They had to have done…

And now? Just another indignity to add to the list. He'd actually liked Kris…

' _For a supposed genius'_ he told himself bitterly, _'You're pretty fuckin' dumb!'_

"Spencer?" he heard Morgan say, as he slowly approached the bed, "You awake?"

' _Morgan'_ he said to himself, silently cringing at the thought of the man seeing him like this. As if it wasn't bad enough that Morgan had found him in his bathroom babbling like a madman, now he would know all about what had happened to him on Friday and Saturday. Two whole days of humiliation and torture, with the evidence written all over his body. It was just more proof, as if any was needed, that Morgan had been right about him all along. That he wasn't Field Agent material…

' _Poor little Spency'_ he sneered at himself, _'Too girly and weak to stop himself from being raped…_ _Maybe you should have kept that whistle after all?'_

He was obviously a liability, and an embarrassment to the entire team. How could he ever look them in the eye again?!

"Hey, Kid?" said Morgan, making his way slowly over to the bed. He was obviously trying his best not to scare him.

Reid just cringed even more. He couldn't go anywhere. He couldn't hide… so, he just pulled his knees up in front of him as far as he could without hurting his stitches and hid his face behind his hand. He didn't want Morgan to see him.

"Reid?" he heard Morgan sigh, and then he felt the bed dip as the older man sat down, "Hey, kid, it's just me. It's Morgan…"

He couldn't help his involuntary reaction to the dipping of the bed. Flashes of the first night began to flood through his mind, and his breathing began to hitch. _'It's just Morgan'_ he tried to tell himself, but his fight or flight instincts were screaming something else.

 _He felt the bed dip on one side. Then knees began to violently force their way between his legs, spreading his thighs apart… Hands began digging into his hips as they pulled him closer, fingers bruising as they positioned him… He couldn't stop it… Couldn't move… Couldn't do a damn thing!_

"Kid, it's me…" said Morgan, and he felt the man's eyes roaming over his body and his face, taking in his injuries like a storyboard of events. He could feel the pity coming off him in waves and it made his skin crawl. "It's just you and me now…" he heard him say, as though that was supposed to be reassuring, "C'mon, man… talk to me…"

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his ankle. Logically, he knew it was Morgan, and that Morgan wouldn't hurt him, but his body wouldn't accept that fact. Everything in him was screaming at him to get away, but just like Thursday night, he couldn't move…

 _There were hands on his ankles… dragging him… pulling him along by his feet… His body limp, bloodied, broken… There was so much pain, and yet it felt distant, like it didn't completely belong to him. Hands that wouldn't move, legs that just lay there… Was this body even his?_

"Kid?!" he heard Morgan ask, but he was well beyond responding. His mind was lost in the memories and the sensations of Thursday night. It was like a video playing on repeat in his mind. Flashes of things that he would give anything to forget.

 _Cold. So very cold… Was he shivering? …He had to be. He couldn't see anything but he could tell that he was naked… Why was he naked?_

"Reid, c'mon, man" he heard Morgan coaxing him, "Just try to take a breathe… c'mon, just in and out…"

 _There was so much weight on top of him, bending him double, pressing forward, pressing down…He heard it then… a crack and his world exploded… pain like white noise…_

" _Please stop" he whimpered, his voice not much more than a hiss of breath. His body rocked forward and back, violently shunting, with each cruel thrust. "Please?!" he sobbed, even though he knew it would do no good._

"Please, stop!" he gasped out, lost in the memory, "Please… I don't… I don't want this!" He was kicking his legs now, desperately trying to get free.

"Hey, hey, kid" soothed Morgan's voice, "You're okay… You're safe… Just breathe…"

That was when he felt the hand move away from his ankle only to find its way to his shoulder instead. It was pulling at him, trying to roll him onto his back. ' _Nooo!'_ he screamed inside his head, _'Not again!'_

He jerked his shoulder away, curling up even tighter towards the edge of the bed. "Don't!" he managed to grunt out, despite the pain now roaring through his body. _Well done, genius!'_ he sneered at himself silently. The pain had brought him out of his flashback but now he was all too aware of where he really was.

"Okay, kid, no touching…" he heard Morgan say, holding both hands up to show he was backing off, "I'm not gonna hurt you, Reid…"

He couldn't help letting out a whimper. He'd moved too suddenly and pulled at his stitches, and now the wound on his belly was burning and throbbing. Twenty stitches in your abdomen was no laughing matter.

"Kid, you in pain?" he heard Morgan ask.

He glanced over his shoulder with a little snort of disdain before returning his gaze to the wall in front of him. Of course, he was in pain! He felt like his whole body was one big bruise sewn clumsily together like a patchwork quilt. No matter what way he moved, he was uncomfortable.

"Okay, stupid question" Morgan conceded, "But… do you need me to get the doctor? Is it bad?"

"No! …Just… just don't touch me" he answered, still out of breath. The last thing he wanted was for the doctors to come back! "I… I don't want you to… to touch me" he said again, "I don't want anyone to touch me… That's all".

"Okay" agreed Morgan, and then Reid heard a chair being pulled closer to the bed, "But Kid… You know we need to talk."

"No, we don't" he replied, hugging his arms around himself. He didn't want to talk about this with anyone. Not ever.

"C'mon, Kid, don't do this…" he heard Morgan reply, "You know we need to get this guy."

"I said no!" he snapped back at him. What right did Morgan have to just come in here and start demanding things?!

"Man, you know we can't just ignore this" said Morgan, a soft pleading quality to his voice, "Someone hurt you, Reid… We just want to help."

"You know what would really help?" he replied tersely, "If you would just leave me alone… I just…"

"Not gonna happen" replied Morgan, cutting him off, "Talk or don't talk… I'm not going anywhere."

Reid eyed the emergency call button at the side of his bed, half-tempted to call a nurse and ask them to throw Morgan out, but in the end he decided against it. He was too tired for the confrontation and part of him did want Morgan to stay. He was kind of scared to be on his own. He just didn't want to admit it. "Isn't there anything I can say that would make you leave?" he asked, his voice flat from exhaustion, "I just… I can't do this right now…"

He heard Morgan give a little huff. "I can't leave you, Reid. We're on strict orders not to leave your bedside. I shouldn't even have stepped outside when the doctor was here."

"I just… I can't" said Reid. He knew what Morgan wanted from him, but he just couldn't do it. He couldn't say those words out loud. Not to anyone. Maybe in time, he might be able to talk to a therapist, but not right now. And certainly not to a man he admired as much as Derek Morgan. The shame he felt was overwhelming.

"We just need a name" said Morgan, "…and where it happened… We need to start building a case."

"Don't… Don't ask me, Morgan…" he stammered out, covering his face again and keeping his back to his best friend, "I… can't talk about it… I w-won't."

"Okay" sighed Morgan, sinking down into the chair beside the bed, "I'm gonna say this though, because I think you need to hear it…"

Reid gritted his teeth. He wasn't in the mood for a lecture. He just wanted to be left alone. Why couldn't he understand that?!

"I did what you're doing right now" said Morgan, "I shut everyone out and I didn't tell anyone for years. You know that. I let what happened to me poison every aspect of my life…"

He heard Morgan give a heavy sigh before continuing. This was obviously still hard for him to talk about. "Do you know what age I was the first time I kissed a girl?" he asked.

Reid didn't respond. He didn't know the answer to that question. He'd always assumed that Morgan would have been a heart-throb in High School, but now he had a feeling that whatever was about to be revealed, it would be a surprise.

"I was twenty-three years old" said Morgan, "I was so messed up by everything that had happened to me. So scared and confused, that I… I don't know, I just couldn't let anyone near me. The thought of anyone touching me just made my skin crawl. I wouldn't get undressed in front of anyone… I didn't even like to look at myself… Thing is, I was twenty-three when I had my first kiss, but I didn't have sex… you know, voluntarily… till I was nearly twenty-five."

Reid glanced over his shoulder again, a look of shock and disbelief on his face. Morgan was the most confident man he knew. How did these two things fit together?!

"That's right, Pretty Boy" he said, smiling sadly now that he had eye contact, "Twenty-five… Not exactly something most men would be proud of."

"But… but you…?" stammered Reid, "You always…" He'd always seen Morgan dancing with women at bars and he'd been pretty certain that he'd taken a good few of them home. They all talked about him as being the ultimate ladies' man.

"Oh, I put on a damn good act" said Morgan, a sad smirk pulling at his lips, "I always did… No-one on my football team ever knew that I wasn't getting any… The only ones that knew _that_ were the girls I didn't sleep with. I'd take them to a movie and then take them home. I'd be the perfect gentleman. We just wouldn't ever go out again… Think about it, before Savannah, when have you known me to ever have a girlfriend? And I mean a girlfriend? Not some honey I met at a club and made it look to all of you like I took her home? …Savannah's like the 3rd woman I've ever slept with."

Reid looked surprised. He'd always imagined Morgan having a list of conquests as long as his arm.

"The point is" said Morgan, "I let what happened with Buford change the way that I felt about myself. I didn't think anyone would want to be with me because I thought I was… I don't know… 'damaged goods' or something. I didn't like what he'd done to my body. The way he'd made me feel. It confused me for a very long time… and I didn't think I could ever relax enough to let someone touch me the way they wanted to... Even just kissing made me think about him…"

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Reid, more than a little uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. He didn't want to think about people touching or kissing right now. It made him feel nauseous.

"Because what happened the other night doesn't change the way that any of us sees you" replied Morgan, "I know you think it does… but it doesn't. You're still the same person you were before it happened. It's just… it's just something that happened, something unbelievably shit that I wish hadn't happened… but we can't change that. What we can do is help you to _deal…_ We can help you to move on from it… If you let us."

"It's not the same though" said Reid, "What happened to you… It's not the same."

"I don't see how it's that different…" Morgan replied.

"I'm not a child" argued Reid, turning over onto his back and hugging his arms around his middle. He still couldn't make eye contact with Morgan so he just sat with his head bowed, fingers clenching the material of his gown. "What happened to you was different…" he added miserably, "I'm a grown man"

"I get that" said Morgan, sitting forward in his chair now, looking relieved to have Reid's full attention, "But it doesn't change the fact that we were both abused… That someone did something to us that they didn't have permission to do."

"But I'm a trained FBI agent" said Reid, still looking down at his sheets ashamedly, "I should have been able to fight him off… I shouldn't have gone with him in the first place. I'm a profiler. I should have seen through him from the start." Tears had started to stream down his cheeks and he wiped them away with an angry swipe of his bandaged fingers.

"The guy from the club?" Morgan asked cautiously, "It was the guy you were talking to all night?"

Reid nodded miserably. "He said… He said he was one of my students… That he sat in on my lectures."

"Do you know his name?" asked the older agent, a note of anger creeping into his voice although he was obviously doing his best to contain it.

"Kris" he replied, tears now streaming down his cheeks, "Kris N-Novotny… That's what he said his name was, but it might be a fake."

"Okay" said Morgan, pulling his phone out and typing the name in to send to Garcia, "You know we're gonna get him, right?"

Reid started shaking his head, his whole face crumpling as he tried to hold back the tears. "I'm… I'm pathetic!" he said, balling his hand into a fist and punching himself in the thigh.

"Hey?!" said Morgan, getting out of his chair again and grabbing Reid's fist, "Stop that! You are _not_ pathetic… You just trusted him. We can't live our lives without trusting people… and you and I both know that there are incredibly manipulative people out there. He had a good act, that's all."

"But I… I shouldn't have gone with him, Morgan" he began to sob, "I don't know why I did… I don't do that sort of thing. I don't go to hotel rooms with people. It's not something I do!"

That was the thing that was eating at him the most. He'd almost come to terms with his asexuality, so he didn't understand why he'd followed the man back to his hotel room like a lamb to the slaughter. If he'd been someone who regularly engaged in risky sex or who often partook of one-night stands, then he could have said ' _It was only a matter of time before this happened'_ , but he was about as vanilla as you could get. In fact, if there was a flavour blander than vanilla, then he was it.

"I don't know why I did it!" he sobbed, looking up into Morgan's eyes for the first time, "How could I be so stupid?!"

"Hey, hey…" soothed Morgan, "You have nothing to be ashamed of…"

Reid looked away and wiped furiously at his tears again. He didn't think he'd ever get over the shame he felt, no matter what Morgan said. No matter what anyone said.

"Come on, man" said Morgan, slipping his arm around his shoulder despite the flinch it produced. "You know this isn't your fault!"

Reid gave a little snort at that. "Yes, it is" he said rolling his eyes and shaking his head. There was nothing but self-loathing in his voice, "I went there with him… I let him… I let this happen."

"Hey!" scolded Morgan, lifting Reid's hand again and looking at the bandaged fingertips, "You did not _let_ anything happen! Looks to me like you put up a hell of a fight!"

Reid glanced up at him for a moment but looked away again, his face blushing bright red with shame and embarrassment. ' _Morgan thinks these are defensive wounds'_ sneered a nasty little voice in his head, _'He doesn't know you let that sicko drug you so you couldn't move! That you just lay there and took it. He's gonna think you're even more pathetic when he finds out! He's gonna know just how weak you really are!'_

"It is _not_ your fault!" continued Morgan, "I don't ever wanna hear you say something like that again! You hear me?! I don't care if you're gay or straight or bi… No-one has the right to make you do something you don't want to do. They don't have the right to hurt you."

"I'm not gay" he said, staring down at his sheets. He was absolutely sure of it now.

"Pretty Boy, it doesn't matter to me what you are" sighed Morgan, "It won't matter to any of the team… You know that right?"

Reid shook his head. "I mean… I don't know what I am… I'm… I'm kind of nothing…" he stammered, "I don't really feel like that… I don't have _those_ kind of feelings for anyone…"

"Okay..." said Morgan, turning to look at him. There was a very long pause before he spoke again, and Reid cringed under the other man's scrutiny. He could feel his eyes on him, gazing at him searchingly. "So… so you're saying you're asexual?"

Reid gave a sad watery little smile and wiped again at his tears. "I… I think so" he said, pulling his hand away from Morgan to hug himself tighter, "I don't want to be… but I think I am."

"And you think that would be a problem?" asked Morgan, bringing his hand up to gently stroke the younger agent's hair, "You think there's something wrong with that?" He sounded a little shocked.

Reid let out a little sob. "It's not 'normal'"

"Yeah?" said Morgan, with a little tut, "And what's normal, kid?"

"I'm not" he answered, his voice breaking, " _Me_ … I'm not normal… Why can't I just be normal?!"

"Listen to me!" said Morgan, giving him a little shake, "There's nothing wrong with you! People like who they like, and don't like who they don't like. I'm not gonna pretend to understand it completely, but if you don't feel that way about anyone, you know what? That's okay! You don't have to apologise to anyone for that… Not ever!"

"But…" he began, looking up at Morgan with tear-filled eyes.

"No buts!" said Morgan, "You're fine just the way you are! …Reid, there's nothing wrong with who you are. NOTHING, understand me?"

Reid really broke down then, his whole body collapsing in big shuddery sobs, and Morgan took the opportunity to pull him in tight against his chest. "Shhh shh" he heard the older man say, as fingers carded through his hair, "You're okay… You're gonna be okay." They sat there like that for some time, Morgan just holding him as he sobbed, but eventually his breathing evened out and he seemed to stop crying.

"Hey" said Morgan, gently pulling away from him and lifting his chin to look him in the eye, "It's gonna be okay."

Reid was staring at him, his eyes wide and unfocused like he was somewhere else in his mind. "He buried me alive" he said, his voice flat and distant, "He tried to kill me, Morgan."

 **AN: Please please please review! Pretty please... with a cherry on top?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: You guys rock! Thank you soooo much to my readers (SasukoUchmaki2012, Pembie, Yeegaber, Pallyndrome, JessicaRae95, Hippiechic81 and my two guest reviewers) for your lovely comments! I really appreciate it! Seeing those little comments pop into my inbox makes my day.**

 **Hope you like this latest chapter. I really struggled with this one so I'm not sure if it's any good. This is probably about the 5** **th** **version of this chapter… but well, I'm gonna go nuts if I don't walk away now. Let me know what you think.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 **Early Wednesday morning…**

Reid lay on his right-hand side and stared across the room to the window. It was getting bright outside, but there were blinds on the glass that made it difficult to see anything. He could really only make out the swaying of a tree in the distance as a green blurry shape moved back and forth. He didn't have his glasses and his distance vision wasn't good enough to make out the details. Not the leaves or the branches, just vague brown shapes melding into green…

He knew that he could probably send one of the team to his apartment to retrieve a spare pair of glasses or his contact lenses case, or even ask the doctors to arrange replacements for him, but somehow, he couldn't bring himself to care. His eyes were too sore anyway.

In truth, everything was sore.

He'd hardly slept because of the pain and now the tiredness was making even the smallest twinges seem amplified. His stomach burned along the incision site, and every movement reminded him that his whole abdomen was bruised a deep shade of blackened purple. His ribs ached, the skin on his feet felt tight and itchy, and it hurt to breathe in or drink anything because his throat was so swollen. And then there were _other things_ that were bothering him, maybe more than everything else combined. The injuries to his nether regions served as an ever-constant reminder of what had happened, forcing him to remember every time he moved...

But laying still wasn't an option either. The bruises on his hips made lying down incredibly uncomfortable and his ribs throbbed more and more the longer he stayed in one position. He'd never been this miserable.

A low rumbling snore got his attention and he glanced tiredly over his shoulder at the man currently occupying the chair. Rossi had been snoring off and on during the night, alternating between little snuffly snorts and full-on 'shake the place down' snores. Of course, he knew the Italian would deny it, just like he always did when they were roomed together. He'd tried explaining that it wasn't anything to be ashamed of; that there was a higher incidence of snoring in older men, with only 10% of men aged 17-29 afflicted with the condition, but over 50% of men aged 50 years of age and over… but he'd been met with an indignant glare that said 'I am _not_ old!'. He did wonder at the wisdom of leaving a chronic snorer in a room with an invalid with specific orders to 'get some sleep'. They all knew the Italian snored. Even the female members of the team had been treated to his foghorn snores on occasion on the plane. If he'd had even the slightest chance of sleeping despite all the pain, he was pretty sure Rossi's snores would have put paid to that.

As it was, he was almost grateful for the disturbance. What little sleep he _had_ managed to get had been plagued by nightmares. Terrifying dreams that had been all too real and had left him gasping and sweating, his heart trying to leap out of his chest. He was scared to go to sleep.

The problem was, the more he tried not to fall asleep, the heavier his body felt. His eyes kept slipping closed and he had to keep shaking himself to stay awake.

He turned to gaze out the window again with a frustrated little huff. He didn't want to think about what the team were doing right now, but it was easier said than done. The thought of it had his stomach in knots and he couldn't concentrate on anything else. He just kept wondering what was taking so long?! How difficult could it be to go search a hotel room?! Either Kris was there, or he wasn't. They would have had their answer hours ago. Why had no-one called to give him an update?!

* * *

Morgan shoved a police officer out of the way as he made a frantic dash from the room, his hand covering his mouth as vomit rushed up his throat. He only made it to the corridor outside the room before vomiting into a large plant pot. He retched and retched, grimacing in disgust as chunks of partially digested danish and sour morning coffee splashed out onto the beige carpet.

"Are you okay?" he heard Hotch say, a pair of shiny black shoes appearing in his field of vision but keeping a respectful distance.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak as he gasped in a few gulps of air and then spat. He had one hand braced against the wall to support himself, but he was almost bent double, dry heaving unproductively. His stomach was obviously empty, but his brain hadn't quite got the message yet.

"Morgan…" he heard the other man begin, "I understand it's difficult..."

"I'm fine" he said, wiping at his mouth as he moved down the hallway to a seated area in a sort of mini-foyer, "It's just… It's Reid, man… I mean…" He sat down on one of the chaise longue type seats and rubbed his face in his hands. "How is any of this fair?"

"It isn't" replied Hotch, following him with a bottle of water that one of the police officers had handed to him. "Here" he said, pressing the bottle and packet of tissues into the other man's hands.

"Thanks" said Morgan, flushing a little with embarrassment. It had been a long time since a crime scene had made him vomit. It wasn't supposed to happen to a seasoned agent like himself. He took the bottle of water and began to take small sips, swishing the water around his mouth to try to wash away the taste of vomit. "I just didn't think it would be so bad" he said after a moment, "I mean… there's blood everywhere."

The room had been a shock for both men, even after so many years on the job. The bed covers, once white and pristine, were now blood splattered, torn, and twisted into makeshift ropes that had obviously been used to restrain their friend. They were looped around the headboard and around the posts at the foot of the bed. The mattress had a large dark stain in the middle, and there was a trail of blood across the carpet that looked as though someone had been dragged kicking and screaming. Handprints stained the bathroom door, blood was splattered all over the porcelain roll-top bath, and the mirror was broken in a way that suggested someone's head had been smashed against it. Even after two days, the air was still thick with the smell of sex and blood and urine. The place was nothing short of a bloodbath.

"They're taking samples" said Hotch, with a grim little nod, "And they're packing away the needles… And those vials you found..."

"Muscle relaxants" nodded Morgan, his face darkening with anger, "Just like Reid said…"

' _I… I couldn't move, Morgan… I couldn't move!'_ he remembered Reid sobbing, _'I just had to lie there and let him do that to me. I just kept hoping someone would come through the door and help me. There was one time… I think he ordered room service, and I heard a woman's voice at the door. I wanted so bad to shout for help, but my mouth… my mouth wouldn't work... He had me tied up… I was on the bed and he… he just threw some blankets over me and went to the door. She was right there! Why didn't she see?!'_

Morgan balled his hand into a fist and drove it into the seat beside him. "That fucker had him paralysed for two days, Hotch! If I get my hands on him, I'm not gonna be responsible for my actions!"

"Morgan, I'm sorry, but I think maybe we need to hand this to another team" said Hotch, sinking down onto the couch beside him, "I think we're too close to this to…"

"You can't be serious?!" exclaimed Morgan, turning to him with a scowl, "Tell me you're not serious, man?!"

"I think it might be for the best" sighed Hotch. He looked worried.

"Just cos I hurled?" demanded Morgan, a look of angry indignation on his face, "It won't happen again, Hotch… I just..."

"No" he sighed, "It's not about that… I'm not happy about it either, but I just think we might be better placed to help Reid emotionally if we take a step back from this and allow another team to run the case… It may be better from a legal standpoint too, if this makes it to court."

"And you really think Reid would be okay with that?!" demanded Morgan, "Cos I sure as hell wouldn't be… If this had happened to me, I know I'd want my friends to go out there and do what they do best. Find this sick fucker, and make sure he pays for what he did… Not just stand around doing nothing. Reid needs to know we got his back, that we're gonna protect him no matter what it takes… He has to be able to count on us, Hotch!"

"Morgan… It's not that simple…" began the older agent, but they were interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. He gave Morgan a look that said, ' _This isn't finished'_ and then fished for his phone in his pocket.

"Garcia?" he said, as he answered, "You're on speaker..."

"Talk to me, Baby Girl" said Morgan as Hotch placed the phone on the cushion between them, "What you got for us?"

"Okay… so I did a thing…" she began, her voice unusually panicked, "And… and I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did… and now I know something that I shouldn't know… but…"

"Garcia, slow down!" said Hotch, his voice soft but authoritative.

"Yes sir!" she chirped a little breathlessly, "I'm trying."

"Now, start from the beginning…" he coaxed, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, "What is the 'thing' you did? Or do I not want to know?"

"I…Oh God, he's never gonna forgive me!" she whined.

"Who isn't?" asked Morgan.

"My sweet little Baby Cakes" she sighed, "You know how much he values his privacy… And I just went and… Oh God, he's gonna hate me!"

"Garcia, can you please just spit it out?!" asked Hotch, his voice betraying his impatience, "What have you done?!"

"Okay… so, I was trying to find a Chris Novotny where my sweet little Junior G-Man lectures but I couldn't find him… like _anywhere_ … He's not staff, and he's never been enrolled… So, I started looking at college forums and I found a 'Kris' with a K with a username of 'Kris-nova'. So, I'm like 'bingo!' Scumbag pops up on a lot of the LGBTQIA websites and forums, ranting about people not living by 'God's laws' and how they need to be 'bred' to teach them how to function normally…and I took a guess that this was him…"

"Okay… I don't see how Reid is gonna be upset with you though?" said Morgan.

"Well… I sort of looked at Reid's search history" she answered, "I mean, I know I shouldn't have… but well, it kind of made sense… and I… I don't know, I thought maybe…"

"What's the forum for?" asked Morgan, a sinking feeling in his gut.

"It's um… it's an 'Ace' forum" she answered, "For um… for asexual people…"

"I see" answered Hotch, the pieces clearing clicking together in his mind.

"So… um… I found out that he's been writing on this forum and talking to people for the last few months… and well… some of the men who were on that forum are missing… Like 'poof!' they're just gone! There are three missing person's reports… I think our guy 'Kris-with-a-K' might be a serial killer!"

* * *

 _Reid gave a startled gasp as he opened his eyes, a pinprick sensation in his thigh. The room was a lot darker now. He must have fallen asleep! He froze stock-still when he realised there was someone in the bed behind him, pressed flush against his body, squeezing him so tight he could hardly breathe. "Spencer" moaned the intruder, hot breath in his ear, the voice thick with arousal, "God, you smell so good". He cringed when he realised that he was naked and that the other body was naked too, a man's crotch pressing against him, nestled sickeningly between his buttocks. A leg began to rub insistently up and down his naked thigh and that voice whispered again, "Gonna show you… gonna make you beg for it..." He wanted to argue, to say no, to tell Kris he didn't want this. Never had! Never would! But he couldn't make his mouth work, the muscles uncooperative and sluggish, simply gulping in panicked breaths. He tried to move, he tried to pull away, but he couldn't. Paralysed! It was happening again!_

"Reid!" came a loud voice, and a hand reached out and shook his shoulder a little violently, "Spencer! Wake up!"

Reid's eyes flicked open, and he gave a loud gasp, as he scrambled out of the bed and onto the floor with a heavy thud. His arm was still attached to the IV so the pole clattered to the floor beside him. He clutched at his chest and wheezed as the panic took hold. A man was crouching down in front of him but he couldn't focus on what was being said. All his panic-stricken brain could manage was a single thought; ' _Run, Spencer! Run!'_

Before he could even try to get up, the figure in front of him held him down, an authoritative voice telling him to wait for the doctors, that they'd need to check him out for further injury. _What if you've burst your stitches?_

Didn't they understand that there was a rapist on the loose?! Burst stitches were the least of his worries!

"Get him away from me!" he rasped out, looking behind him at the bed in terror, "Somebody help!"

"Shh, shhh, easy… calm down Spencer, calm down!" he heard the man say, a hand holding him in place with very little effort, "It was just a bad dream, okay? …Look where you are… It's just a hospital room… You're safe."

His eyes flitted madly around the room, bouncing from corner to corner in search of a fellow naked body. He needed to see where Kris had gone. He'd been just here, hadn't he?! How could he have gotten out of the room so fast?! He glanced up at the man in front of him and blinked a couple of times to try to focus on his face. Through his panicked haze, the face began to become clear. _'Hotch!_ ' his brain supplied a little foggily, ' _Hotch will know where he went!'_

"Where is he?!" he whined, eyes pleading with Hotch to make this all go away, "He was just here!"

"Who?" asked Hotch, a look of pity and concern etched across his face, "Reid, there's no-one else, here… Rossi left this morning."

"Not Rossi… Kris!" he hissed at him, yanking at the gown to try to cover himself up, "He was just in here! He was in my bed!" A wave of anger crashed over him. He'd been trusting his team to watch out for him, even letting his guard down a little, and they'd allowed _that_ man to get in here… and… touch him again! "You… you let him get to me!" he growled accusingly, "You promised me I was safe!"

"Spencer, you _are_ safe!" sighed Hotch, "You _are_! One of us has been here the whole time… It was just a dream."

Just a dream? He glanced around him again, noting the bright light outside, and then down at the gown he was wearing. Of course! It had been a dream! He knew that… Of course, he _knew_ that! Kris wasn't here. And yet… it had felt so real. _His_ skin, _his_ smell, the _feel_ of him against his body… He felt like throwing up.

"Oh God!" he groaned, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth as he began to retch.

"Woah, Spencer!" gasped Hotch, as he made a mad grab for an emesis tray off the table above him and just managed to get it under Reid's nose in time for the flood of vomit rushing out of his mouth.

Reid heaved violently, bringing up what little food he'd managed to force down the evening before. He gulped in desperate breaths of air in between retches, almost choking himself, and moaning loudly at the pain of both his belly and his ribs. "Oh God!" he groaned, when the nausea finally began to ease off. Distantly, he became aware of Hotch's hand on his back rubbing soft circles, and the fact that the man was now holding an over-flowing basin of sick in the other one. "Sorry" he moaned, wiping at his mouth, and glancing shamefacedly at his boss.

"It's fine, Reid" said Hotch, setting the emesis bowl aside and reaching for a box of tissues he'd just spotted.

"You shouldn't have to deal with this" sighed Reid, accepting a tissue and swallowing convulsively to try to quell the queasiness in his stomach.

"This is the second time I've been thrown up on today" chuckled Hotch, "At least you managed to get most of it in the bowl." He elected not to tell him it was Morgan that had been doing the vomiting because of what that would mean. "You get used to it when you have kids" he added hastily. With that, he got to his feet and reached for him, "Come on, let's get you back into bed?"

Reid gave a weak little nod. Even if he wanted to object, he didn't think he would have the energy to say no, and truth be told, his whole body was aching right now. He couldn't stay on the hard floor for much longer.

With some difficulty, Hotch managed to manoeuvre him off the floor, trying and failing to find a way to lift him without hurting him in one way or another. In the end, Reid just grit his teeth and allowed himself to be trailed up, his legs too weak to offer much support. With a hiss, he settled back against the pillows and arranged himself under the blankets.

' _Calm down'_ he told himself. Even though he was much more comfortable in the bed than he had been on the floor, he couldn't shake the feeling that Kris had been in this bed too. That he'd been there and somehow tainted it. ' _You're being ridiculous!'_ he mentally scolded himself, ' _He's not here!_ '

"Someone's been here the whole time?" he asked, unable to stop himself from double-checking but more than a little embarrassed at how paranoid he sounded, "You didn't leave me alone?"

Hotch gazed at him for a moment, silently reading him with soft fatherly eyes. "No, Spencer" he said, as though he was reassuring Jack after a nightmare, "We didn't leave you alone. Morgan was here… Rossi came in to relieve him last night, and I took over this morning. There's always been someone here… and I was here when you started having that nightmare."

"So… he couldn't have been here?" he said, more as a statement than a question, "Kris definitely wasn't here?"

"No, Spencer, he wasn't" Hotch assured him, "It was just a dream."

Reid nodded, his eyelids growing heavy, but he startled when he felt Hotch lift the blankets back and begin to tentatively lift his hospital gown.

"What are you doing?!" he gasped, weakly reaching for the hem to pull it back down again.

"I just want to check your wound" said Hotch, his voice even and calm, "You fell out of bed. You might have busted your stitches?"

"I'm fine" he replied shortly, the pained expression on his face telling a different story, "It's fine… I'm fine…" There was a hint of panic in his voice. He didn't want Hotch seeing him naked.

"I just want to make sure the wound isn't bleeding" the older agent insisted, "It's better than me calling the doctor in, isn't it? You know they'll take a lot longer than I will…"

Reid rolled his eyes. He recognised it for what it was, a very manipulative ploy, and he couldn't help feeling a sudden pang of sympathy for Jack Hotchner. With a father like this, the boy must never get away with anything.

"Fine!" he grunted, "But only the bandage on my stomach. Nothing else. I'm still capable of telling when I need help."

Hotch gave a tiny, almost imperceptible little smile, before gently rolling the hospital gown up far enough to get a look at the large pad of gauze bandage taped to Reid's abdomen. Reid looked away, flushing a little pink as the older agent peeled back the bandage to check for bleeding before taping it back into place. "

Looks okay" said Hotch, replacing the gown and pulling the blankets back for him. "How's the pain?"

"It's fine" answered Reid.

Hotch almost rolled his eyes. "Please don't do that, Reid… I asked you a simple question, I want an honest answer."

Reid licked his lips and turned his gaze to the window for a moment. "It's… manageable" he answered eventually, "I don't want to take any more painkillers."

"I respect that" answered Hotch, "But there's a limit to how much pain you should be in… You can have NSAIDs. I don't want you suffering unnecessarily." He waited for Reid to look at him. "I mean it."

Reid just nodded reluctantly. "I take it you didn't get Kris?" he asked, fingers nervously picking at the material of his gown, "Morgan said he would call…"

"No, Reid, I'm sorry" said Hotch, "He wasn't there… The hotel said he'd paid up for an extra week and put a 'do not disturb' sign on the door. They don't know when he left."

Reid nodded glumly. "So… You just… You saw the hotel room?"

"We did" confirmed Hotch.

"And it was… it was still… like before?" he stammered. Flashes of blood-soaked sheets and blood dripping down porcelain flashed through his mind.

"Yes" answered Hotch, his eyes full of compassion for the younger man, "It didn't look like he'd made any effort to clean things up…. It's all being taken into evidence…"

Reid nodded, as he watched the older man speak. He sensed that there was something Hotch wasn't telling him. The man's body language was tense and guarded and he was being too _nice_ , too _gentle._ Something had the man walking on eggshells around him even more than he had been earlier, in a state of hyper-vigilance, his eyes flitting to the doorway every time there was a noise in the hallway. Not only that, but Hotch was wearing a Kevlar vest and he had both his guns on him. Something had obviously freaked him out, and if Aaron Hotchner was freaking out, then it had to be something bad. It was then that he noticed the armed security guard stationed outside his door. His eyes flitted back to meet the worried gaze of his boss. "What aren't you telling me?" he asked.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Okay, so here we go with another chapter. Sorry once again for the delay – pesky life getting in the way again… Not sure I'm completely happy with it, but it's better than nothing right? Hope you like it. Thanks to my lovely lovely reviewers (JessicaRae95, Yeegaber, Pembie, Guest, Pallyndrome, and barbiec). I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to throw something at me. Sometimes little comments can help to steer the story or make me think of things I wouldn't have otherwise. Any feedback is appreciated always!**

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

"Reid, can you look at me, please?" asked Hotch, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. As gentle and patient as he was trying to be with the younger agent, they were short on time, and he couldn't help getting frustrated. He understood that Reid was embarrassed about his sexual orientation and hadn't wanted the entire team to know, but surely, he could see that there were larger things at stake?! For a man with a 187 IQ, Reid could be surprisingly childish when he wanted to be, a quality he didn't particularly like. "Don't you think you're a little old to be giving me the silent treatment?" he admonished, "It's a little childish, Reid, and frankly I'd expect more from one of my agents".

Reid's shoulders slumped a little as he glanced sideways at his boss. That was a low blow, and from the suddenly apologetic look on Hotch's face, the other man knew it as well. Reid looked away again and pulled his arms more tightly around his mid-section. It hurt to do it, but he was feeling attacked. So what if he didn't want to talk right now?! It felt like silence was his only defence.

"Reid, come on?!" pleaded Hotch, a softer tone to his voice, "Garcia said she's sorry. She didn't mean to go digging in your… in your private affairs… but it's done now…"

Reid shook his head and pursed his lips together. He hated that the whole team knew now. That he'd basically been 'outed' as some kind of defective sexless _thing._ Not straight, not gay… just _nothing_. Worthless. And the fact that it was Garcia that had done it kind of stung more than anything. He'd trusted her with so much over the years, this just felt like such a huge betrayal.

"You don't have to be embarrassed… or… or anything like that…" stammered Hotch, "It doesn't change anything, Reid… Your… your sexual orientation is none of our business… Nothing to do with the job we do, or how any of us feel about you. It won't change anything… Why would it?"

Reid gave a sad little snort and turned to look at the older man. Of course, it would matter. Men like Aaron Hotchner, and most of the alpha males that worked at the BAU, measured their worth in terms of 'manliness'. A man that didn't want to have sex might as well be an alien in their eyes, or worse still, a eunuch. They'd pretend it didn't matter to them, but he knew it would. Just another way that Spencer Reid failed to fit into the normal world. Another thing that marked him out as 'weird'.

Hotch reached over and tapped the pages on the table in front of Reid. "You don't need to be embarrassed about any of this, you know that, right?"

Reid glanced down at the printouts in front of him and ran his fingers over them. They were transcripts from the conversations he'd been having with other asexual people on one of the university forums. It was for students who identified as 'Ace' and wanted to talk to others like them or maybe find friends. He knew that he wasn't a student, and as a part-time lecturer, he'd worried that it wasn't appropriate for him to even be on the site, but he'd felt so lost in the last few years that he'd jumped at the chance to talk anonymously. He'd only gone onto the website a little over 4 months ago because he'd seen some stickers around campus during Pride Week, and the thought of meeting some likeminded people had piqued his interest. Could there really be people out there who understood what it was like to not want sex? To be one of the few celibates in what seemed to be a sex-crazed world? Were there people out there who were just as lonely and confused as him? Something inside him had ached to find out.

When he'd first ventured onto the site, all he'd done was read the different threads, not adding anything himself, and lacking the courage to create a profile in case it could be traced back to him. But after a month of 'lurking' he'd taken the plunge and registered under the name ' _The Doctor'_ with a picture of the original Doctor from Dr Who. It wasn't exactly the most inventive profile name but somehow, he thought it fit. He'd started chatting to someone called ' _Sheldonb4Amy_ ' but he'd never really got the reference, and another person simply called _'Paul'_ who had a little alien picture as his profile pic. There'd been lots of others but those were the two he'd gotten most close to. They'd both been really kind to him, and he'd begun to open up about all his hopes and fears. He couldn't believe he'd poured so much of his heart out into the public sphere for all to see. Of course, at the time he'd felt safe within the constraints of anonymity, and he'd never expected the world to read what he'd written. Now, his deepest thoughts and feelings were being thrown in his face by the people he'd come to trust and love as his family, and it felt like such an enormous violation. Like being stripped naked and splayed open for all to see. He didn't know how he could ever trust anyone else again, least of all Garcia.

Worse still was the fact that being on this website was what had led his attacker to him. The thought that he'd brought this misery on himself was weighing heavily on his mind now and clouding all other rational thought. One thought repeated over and over in his mind: _'If only I wasn't asexual, I wouldn't have been raped'_. It made his self-loathing ramp up another couple of notches to the point where he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. Somehow it overshadowed what should have been the more shocking revelation – that his attacker had seemingly abducted three other men, some of whom he'd been chatting to online. That his online friends and confidantes might be dead. That his rapist was in all likelihood a serial killer, and had he not managed to crawl out of that grave, he would be dead now too. That the Unsub might still be out there and could be coming back to finish the job (hence the guard on the door). Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of all those things, but he just couldn't focus… All he knew was that he hated himself.

"It's okay to be confused about things" continued Hotch, reaching out and giving him a tentative little pat on the back of the hand, "You've done nothing wrong… There's no need to be ashamed about any of this…"

Reid glanced up at his boss again and looked into the older man's eyes. The man did seem to be sincere in what he was saying, and he desperately wanted to believe that it was true, but he'd heard the way that people talked in the office. He knew that ' _getting some'_ was an essential part of being a functioning adult, and abstaining was viewed as abnormal. As much as Hotch wanted to pretend that everyone would be 100% accepting, he knew that he would be in for a lot of teasing, and probably some ' _you just haven't met the right girl'_ pep talks. It was embarrassing… but Hotch was right about one thing; it was none of their business! They had no right to go through his personal affairs like this!

"We've kept the details within the team for now" said Hotch, "I'm going to try to keep the finer details out of the final case file… Speak to Strauss about getting your name redacted…"

Reid shook his head as he looked down at the pages in front of him again. He knew that Hotch wouldn't be able to stop this getting out. It wouldn't take long for other teams to put two and two together, and then it would become public knowledge that not only had he been raped, AND he was asexual, but he'd brought this on himself. Caught the attention of some guy who didn't like prudes, then walked right into a trap and got himself drugged and raped. It sounded like a joke. He didn't think he could take the humiliation.

"We'll do our best to maintain your privacy" continued Hotch.

"There's no point" sighed Reid, as he stared down at the black and white text in front of him. He knew that he was going to have to cooperate with the investigation to make sure that Kris was caught. He knew that he was going to have to give evidence in court when it came to it, and he'd have to reveal every sordid detail of what had happened to him. Not only that, but he knew that the details of those sad little conversations were going to be fodder for the courtroom. By the time it was finished, he would be a laughing stock, and any shred of pride he still had left would have been ripped away. "I'm not coming back…" he sighed again, his voice dull and expressionless, "People might as well know all of it."

"What?!" gasped Hotch.

"You heard me" he answered stiffly, "I'm not coming back. As soon as I have access to a computer and can type out an official letter, I'll be tendering my resignation."

Hotch frowned at him. He'd expected the boy to be upset but this was resignation in the true sense of the word. After everything that he'd been through, from Hankel to Anthrax to getting shot in the knee, this was the straw that had broken the camel's back. The young man he'd always known to be so strong was finally giving up. "I can't allow that, Reid, I won't accept it…" he said.

"Whether you accept it or not, I'm not coming back" replied Reid, as he stared out the window. He could just imagine the jeering taunts in the bullpen now. That asshole Gomez would be grinning from ear to ear as he read out some of the more cringe-worthy excerpts from the file.

' _I just want someone I can do stuff with'_ he'd hear him say in a high-pitched girly voice, _'Someone who wants to hold hands and maybe cuddle on the couch, but I can't deal with all the rest of it. I hate all the smells and the slurpy noises. It's so unhygienic. And I really don't understand why anyone wants someone else's tongue in their mouth.'_ "Kid sounds like an eight-year-old girl!" he'd probably crow loudly, "What's wrong Reid, do the icky girls have cooties?! Don't want them touching your wee wee?!"

He didn't think he'd ever be able to look any of them in the eye again. "It's for the best" he said to Hotch, eyes still fixed on the sky outside. Maybe he could move away and get a job full-time at a University on the West Coast. It would be nice to be somewhere warm again.

"I think you need to take some more time to think about this" said Hotch, "I don't think you're in any fit state to make that kind of decision. Take a few weeks and if you still want to resign, I won't stand in your way. I'll be disappointed, but if it's what you really want, I'll understand."

Reid let out an exasperated little huff and turned back to the table. He picked up the printouts from the website and the missing person reports for the three men involved in the case and shuffled them in his hands. He didn't know the three men to look at because the website didn't allow you to use photos of yourself as your profile pic, but Garcia was fairly sure that one of them was _'Paul'_. He'd gone missing three weeks ago and Reid had been wondering why he'd suddenly left the group chat. He really hoped that he was okay.

"I don't need to even read through these pages to remember these conversations" he said, "I remember them word for word, and every other thread I've ever been on… every username on there, every profile pic, every embarrassing sentence ever typed… Do you have any idea what it's going to be like for me to come back and try to work alongside all of you?! As though it's not bad enough that I'm in here… that… _this_ happened to me… but now you all know how pathetic I really am!"

"Reid, we don't think that…" began Hotch. He was a little shocked at just how low Reid's self-esteem seemed to be. He'd always known it was a problem, but he hadn't quite realised how deep-seated these feelings of self-loathing obviously were. How could he not have realised how much his subordinate was suffering? "We don't think you're pathetic, Reid" he said, reaching out again for Reid's hand, "No-one thinks that".

"Yes, they do!" the younger man shouted, yanking his hand away, "I can't deal with it. It'll be like being back in high school! Do you know what happened to me once?! The bullies got my journal and used it to torment me… Do you have any idea what it's like when people use your own words to hurt and humiliate you?!"

"Reid, it won't be like that this time" he replied, "You're an adult now, we're all adults…"

Reid gave an incredulous huff of sarcastic laughter. "If you think anything has changed because we're _'adults'_ , then you've been living a really charmed life, Hotch! I've been bullied my whole life. Being an adult doesn't change anything!"

Hotch grimaced a little at the way that Reid sneered the word ' _adults'_ and even used air quotes in a sarcastic way. It was very uncharacteristic of him. It also worried him that he said, ' _all my life_ '. Was he being bullied in the BAU? He would have to pursue this another time when things were a bit less fraught.

"And this…" hissed Reid, holding the pages in his trembling fist, " _This_ is gonna be worse than anything I've been through before… because…" His voice broke a little and he gasped in an unsteady breath as he tried not to cry. "Because I thought I'd finally found somewhere that I belonged…"

"You have, Reid" said Hotch, his voice sad and a little choked, "You belong with us..."

"No" sighed Reid, staring at the crumpled pages through unshed tears, "After what Garcia did… Looks like I was wrong."

* * *

"What if he doesn't forgive me?" whined Garcia, as she slumped at her desk, "I mean you know the way he is… and… and Hotch said to give him some space which must mean that he's angry with me… and… Oh, my God, I can't believe I… I 'outed' him… I _'outed'_ him JJ, that's unforgivable!"

"Uh… Pen… I'm sorry, but this really isn't a good time" replied JJ, holding her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she made her way under police crime scene tape towards Morgan and Prentiss. She could see them standing beside the exhumed grave as they spoke to the chief Crime Scene Investigator. Rossi was in the distance, talking to the lead officer from the Local PD. This was quickly turning into a very grizzly case. "I really have to go" she said, "I'll give you a call later."

"Okay" said Garcia, an obvious sniffle in her voice, "O…okay".

JJ threw Morgan an exasperated look when he turned to see where she was. "Really, Pen, just give him a few days to calm down and I'm sure he'll see the bigger picture. We wouldn't have known there was a killer on the loose if you hadn't started digging…" She rolled her eyes at her own unintentional pun. She was standing in a graveyard after all. "He'll come round." She added, "Try not to freak out about it."

"Okay" agreed Garcia, "I can… I can do that… Just a few days…"

JJ cancelled the call and slipped the phone into her pocket. "What have we got?" she asked, when she finally made it across the graveyard to Morgan.

Prentiss, who was on the phone, gave her a little nod and then walked away so she could take her call in private.

"Four bodies so far…" said Morgan, his jaw tight with anger, "Bastard buried them all here… Just reopened the fresh graves and dumped them in on top of the coffins…"

"Do we know where the caretaker is?" she asked, staring around at all the local police and forensics teams in circulation. Teams were still working their way through the more recent graves. "I mean, someone had to have seen the graves being dug up? This can't have gone unnoticed?"

"Local PD picked the guy up a couple of hours ago" he replied, "Insists he was just taking bribes to look the other way… Sent the Unsub a text message when there was a fresh grave but that he didn't know what the Unsub was doing."

"Real nice guy" she remarked, "Like he couldn't guess what someone might want with an open grave?!"

"Mm" he murmured, "Rossi and I are gonna pay him a visit a little later."

"Do we know… where… where the Unsub put Spencer?" she asked, big blue eyes looking a little teary.

He gave a tense little nod, teeth clenching involuntarily. "We found one with the soil all torn up" he said, pointing to a grave with overturned soil, "Figure that's where he buried Reid… Kid must have dug himself out…" Suddenly the bloodied fingers and broken nails made a lot more sense.

"Were the others buried alive?" asked JJ, as she eyed the four black body bags lined up a short distance away and shuddered at the thought of all those poor young men and how scared they must have been in their final moments… _'Spencer could have been one of them'_ she thought to herself in horror, _'We could be here, right now, digging up one of our closest friends.'_

"We won't know until we get the autopsy reports" sighed Morgan, "I saw the most recent victim though. Hands didn't look all torn up like Reid's… Maybe the Unsub made a mistake, thought Reid was dead when he buried him?"

"Maybe that's why he was able to climb out?" she said, "He can't have buried him too deep if he was able to dig through the soil… If he thought he was already dead, he probably thought he didn't need to. Just enough to cover the body…"

"That's what I was thinking" agreed Morgan. He was so grateful that his friend was recovering in the hospital and not being zipped up in one of those body bags right now. "Kid got lucky" he said, with a lopsided smile.

"I don't think he'd see it that way" said JJ. She was pretty sure that Reid would freak if he heard any of them use the word 'lucky' around him right now. And she wouldn't blame him really. How could something this bad have happened to him again?!"

"Yeah, I know" snapped Morgan, "You know I didn't mean it like that!" He was tired and emotional, and everything in him felt wound tight. He felt like he needed to hit something.

"Sorry" said JJ, looking a little upset that he'd snapped at her, "I just meant… He was buried alive. There aren't many experiences more horrifying than that."

"And you think I don't know that?!" he demanded angrily, although he wasn't entirely sure he agreed. He'd never been buried alive, but he had been sexually assaulted, and he wasn't sure which one would be worse. Reid had sure had his fair share of terrifying experiences…

"I'm just saying you need to be careful what you say around Spencer right now!" continued JJ, a fierce protective look on her face that was almost motherly.

"You're telling _me_ what to say around Reid?!" he asked incredulously, "You're telling _me_?! If you haven't noticed, I've been the one at his bedside. I've been the one getting him through this! Getting him to talk… I don't see Pretty Boy confiding in _you_ …"

As soon as he said it, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He knew by the expression on her face that it had cut too close to the bone.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but the reply died in her throat, and her face fell. ' _Morgan's right'_ she thought. She hadn't been the one that Reid had reached out to. She'd always considered him to be her best friend but when it had really mattered, when he'd been hurting the most and needed someone, he hadn't wanted to confide in her. He'd chosen Morgan. He hadn't even asked to see her since he'd been awake. "I know" she said finally, and she swiped frustratedly at the tear that was rolling down her cheek, "You're right… He doesn't need me."

"Hey, hey, hey" he said, catching her elbow as she tried to turn away from him, "I didn't mean that." He crouched a little to look her in the eye and gave her a soft little smile. "You know he loves you, JJ… He's just… messed up right now, and I was able to… well, I mean, I kind of have experience with this stuff… y'know? Cos of what happened to me."

She gave a shaky little nod and forced a smile on her lips. That did make sense... "I know" she said, "I'm trying not to take it personally, but it's hard… I just don't know how to help him."

"Just by being there for him" he replied, "You'll know what to do when you see him… but you need to give him time. He's not doing too good with this right now."

JJ nodded. She'd send a message tomorrow and ask if it was okay for her to come see him. Maybe if she said she'd bring Henry, it might soften him up a bit?

They turned to see Prentiss approaching with Rossi at her side. They didn't look happy.

"Unsub's another victim" scowled Prentiss as she re-joined them and held up her phone to show the photo of another young man. He had dark hair and blue eyes and was smiling at the camera in a shy kind of way, as though he didn't want the photo to be taken. "25-year-old Marcus Pragana. PhD student, biochemistry… Garcia says he's been pretty active on the same forum that Reid was on, username _'Marcus the Martian'_ "

"Disappeared two days ago" added Rossi, a grim look to his features, "So, if the Unsub keeps to the same timeline as he did with Reid, it means we're nearly out of time." He scanned the gathering crowds along the railings of the graveyard, scowling a little at the number of cameras and phones being used to record what was happening. The fact that bodies had been discovered in a local graveyard was probably already all over social media. "Looks like our Unsub is gonna be looking for a new burial ground."


End file.
